Mutiny Review

According to several comic book writers and what seems like a whole subsection of geeks, pirates are the new monkeys. That of course is open to debate (simians always will be much cooler than murdering, thieving seamen in my humble opinion!), but no one can deny that pirates should make for much more satisfying subject matter for a board game - after all, unless we're talking about giant irradiated super monkeys trampling over densely populated cities, the life of a primate really isn't all that interesting.

Back to pirates though - Mutiny is a game that concerns itself with, rather unsurprisingly, a mutiny onboard a pirate ship. Players are crew members bargaining with the easily bribed seamen on board using rum and doubloons, in order to secure their important talents and eventually take control of the ship. Players win when they have collected ten or more cutlasses.

Play takes the form of blind bidding on each pirate in turn. Several players on Board Game Geek have complained that no screens were supplied so it is nearly impossible to make true blind bids, but myself and everyone I have played with have never had any trouble keeping all doubloons and rum concealed in one hand, sorting out the bid out of sight of the other players and then all revealing the bid simultaneously in the other hand. Each pirate has a different primary and secondary power which will be worth a different amount to each player in each round (the Gunner for instance tends to be worth a lot every round due to his primary function giving the winning bidder two cutlasses and the secondary function for the runner up one cutlass). Once bidding has been resolved for all five pirates - players use a combination of rum and doubloons, with ties decided by the player who currently has the spyglass - the powers are resolved in order from the first pirate to the fifth. There are also map tiles to take into consideration - each round one is placed face up next to the row of pirates, and it shows bonuses and penalties for the winning bidder of each pirate for going either north or south during that round. The player who wins the bid on the Pilot gets to choose the direction that the ship sails, which can be quite harsh for some players!

Despite the entire game revolving around the blind bidding system, due to the fantastic illustrations and the implementation of certain mechanics (between rounds, any rum used during the bidding phase 'disappears'), Mutiny is steeped in theme and really does evoke the feeling of being involved in a cut-throat battle for control of the ship and the crew of a wayward vessel. The descriptions of each pirate help to clarify why each one is able to offer each of their powers to players and everything is handled in a logical manner according to the theme.

Mutiny doesn’t have a lot of replay value, due to the central gameplay mechanic, but is a lot of fun while it lasts. Blind bidding games are often hit or miss for many gamers as they are admittedly quite an acquired taste - if you are not a fan of blind bidding games, Mutiny is definitely not for you. However, the theme is incredibly well integrated and the graphic design is up to the usual high standards set by the rest of Fantasy Flight's Silver Line titles - so as long as the auction mechanic isn't a total turn off, Mutiny comes highly recommended by myself and my crew.

Summary

Presentation: Nicely packaged in the standard Fantasy Flight Silver Line box, illustrations and component quality is high throughout. The components are all made of sturdy cardboard which will stand up to serious punishment! 8.9/10

Clarity of Rules: Fairly dense-looking rules, but this helps to ensure that there are no clarifications needed during play. A few of the concepts do take some time to get used to though, but this is more due to the nature of the game than the rules themselves. 8.5/10

Game Length: Pretty short - with games lasting around 20-30 minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome – although games can eventually become repetitive. 7.3/10

Value: Replay value isn’t too high as the blind bidding can get old unless you can vary your game group – it seems that certain people tend to always rely on the same tactics from game to game. 5.9/10

Overall: A good example of the blind bidding genre, but one that can grow tiresome fairly quickly. Surprisingly effective integration of theme into gameplay though, which is very impressive. 7.1/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown

Lord of the Rings: Sauron Review

This review expects that the reader is familiar with the play of the basic game, and knows a little about the Friends and Foes expansion – please read my reviews of those products for more information if you need a refresher.

The Lord of the Rings Sauron Expansion is the second addition to the Knizia game, and one that adds a whole new dimension (and a whole new level of difficulty for the hobbits) to an already excellent experience.

What you get in the box is a lovely Black Rider figure, Sauron cards, Nazgûl cards, more Gandalf cards, yet more Fellowship cards, the One Ring card, the Watchful Peace card, new resource cards (along with some resource chips), some new (and evil) tiles to add to your tile stacks, and a cloth bag that you can use to draw your tiles out of.

In terms of bits alone, this is worth the price you pay. The additions to actual gameplay make this a must-have for any fans of the original game.

The main addition to the game allows one player to take on the role of Sauron, and actively try and stop the Fellowship from destroying the Ring by placing obstacles and foes in the way. The dice from the base game is no longer used, and the black square symbol on the boards and cards now activate the Sauron player. The Sauron player also gets the chance to act at the start of each player’s turn. The Sauron player is evil, and horrible, and all other players will come to hate and fear that player…

The nasty and terrible things that Sauron can do to the Fellowship change slightly depending on how he is activated. If activated in lieu of a die roll, Sauron can select and play a card from his hand, or refresh his hand back to six cards. The cards that Sauron can play all have horrible things on them that the active player must somehow ‘fulfil’. For example, a card might have a black circle and two white squares, meaning that the active player must move one step on the corruption track, and discard two cards (or reveal two foes if using the Friends and Foes expansion – and why would you not be using that expansion, you fool?).

But the Sauron cards are not all bad … I tell a lie, they are all bad – they just vary in their badness…! The ‘nicest’ one I can find is a black circle – one hobbit gets corrupted by one point.

At the start of each player’s turn, the Sauron player has more options. He can play a basic Sauron card, as above, except that it is weaker, and the active player gets to choose a single consequence of the card (in the above example, the player could choose to become corrupted by one point, or lose one card/gain one foe). The Sauron could draw a single card from the deck to replenish his hand. Or he can haul out the big guns and send a Nazgûl after the Fellowship. There are only nine Nazgûl available to the Sauron player for the whole of the game, and each can only be used once. They are pretty nasty, though… They have two effects; first, they have a symbol, much like a Sauron card (e.g. move Sauron one space on the corruption track, active hobbit is corrupted by one, etc.), and they have some special effect or text that usually effects the whole Fellowship. For example: Each player discards one joker, or activates Sauron (as above). Or: One player must discard 5 fighting cards, or Sauron move two spaces on the corruption track. These are nasty, nasty cards!

Another nasty surprise for the Fellowship in this expansion is the Black Rider. He starts on the corruption track on the 15 space (alongside his buddy Sauron), and moves as a consequence of the Sauron and Nazgûl cards. There is a new symbol – a black horse’s head with a number in, showing how far along the corruption track the rider moves. When the Black Rider meets the Ring-Bearer on the corruption track, all kinds of horrible things happen; the Sauron player gets to play a Nazgûl card, and is activated as though a black square symbol was landed on. And the Black Rider turns round and prepares to head back to Mordor. If the Black Rider can make it back to Mordor with the whereabouts of the Ring-Bearer, the Fellowship encounters the Big Eye and the game ends with a win for the bad guys…! (The Black Rider is re-set at the beginning of each scenario.)

However, things are not all bad for our struggling hobbits…

There are now extra resources along the ‘lesser’ Activity lines on the scenario boards. These chits are selected at random, and placed so that everyone can see them, and provide extra support to the hobbit that manages to land on them, for healing, extra cards, shields and special cards similar to Feature cards that you can get from Rivendell or Lothlorien.

Each Hobbit also gets an extra special ability card – a one-shot deal similar to those found in the Friends and Foes expansion. The cards in this expansion tend to be globally helpful, rather than helpful for the Hobbit with the ability. For example, Pippin can use his card to allow the active player to play any three white or grey cards on his turn, rather than just one white and one grey.

There are three new Gandalf cards available, to cover the new systems (for example, to prevent the play of a Nazgûl card).

These new ‘good’ cards and resources scarcely make up for there now being a sentient Sauron, however…

The final additions to this expansion are the bag, the dark events tiles, and the two new cards.

These three elements are purely optional, although I wonder why anybody would play without them. The bag is an aesthetic addition, allowing you to put your event tiles in to draw from, rather than drawing them from stacks around the board. The bag is black cloth, with an Eye of Sauron in a slightly different black – very stylish.

The dark events are a whole bunch of new tiles that are added to the mix. They are all nasty ones, and bring new effects in to play. However, with the addition of the new tiles comes a new rule; when a player draws a tile, he is able to ignore the first tile drawn and draw a second one, which must be acted upon. This provides some really delicious and excruciating decision points in the game. Do you keep the possible event and try to counter it before it occurs, or draw again, and risk getting an unavoidable event? Allow the ring-bearer to become corrupted or draw again and hope for an activity symbol? These choices almost hurt with their evilness!

The extra cards are the One Ring and the Watchful Peace, both of which can be used exactly once during the whole game. The One Ring card allows the Ring-bearer to pass the ring to any other player. The Watchful Peace is used to push Sauron back three steps on the corruption track. The kicker with this card is that if Watchful Peace is not used in the game, it is worth an extra ten points at the end of the game.

The expansion is excellent, adding a whole new level of terror and difficulty for our beleaguered Fellowship. The Sauron player has an almost easy time of it, sending wave after wave of evil events and foes to harass the hobbits. In the games we’ve played, the Sauron player has won every time, making this the hardest expansion yet.

But even without the addition of the Sauron player (which we only do if we’re feeling really brave!), the expansion adds to the game in many ways – the bag and new tile drawing rules add tension and fear to the tile drawing phase of every turn. The two new cards add a little bit of respite for the hobbits, but even this comes at a price (albeit a not very enticing ten points loss if the card is used).

We have taken to using the extra resources even when playing without the Sauron player – making the minor activity tracks that bit more tempting. This seems to work well – we are still only just making or losing the game even with the added benefits of the new resources.

The bulk of the expansion is the addition of Sauron however, and this is the strength and the weakness of this expansion. The game take son new levels of fear and tension with the Sauron player, and ups the ante in many ways. But after several plays and still no sign of a win for the Fellowship, I have to wonder if the balance is seriously out of whack for this one. Having played the Sauron role myself, I found that I was going easy on the Fellowship a lot, almost playing a Gamemaster role than an active competitor. I was in a winning position many times during the game, and let the hobbits off easily for fear of souring the game for my players.

Maybe with more plays and experience under our belts (although how much more is difficult to say, as we have played a lot now, and I feel that we have a good handle on the game), we will be better equipped to take on Sauron, but right now? I use the bag, the extra tiles and cards (and resources), but still wait for the day that Sauron falls under our advance…

Presentation: The same good artwork and layout that we have experienced throughout the game’s lineage. John Howe steps upo once again to give us superb art,a nd the cloth bag is sublime and wonderful! 9.2/10

Clarity of Rules: Anyone who can play the base game will be able to easily add the new rules and extra bits to their game. The rules aren’t quite as impenetrable as the base game, but still suffer a little from bad layout. 7.4/10

Game Length: Increases the length of the base game, with the Sauron player taking a turn att he beginning of every other player’s turn. Sauron’s goes are generally pretty short, though, and keep everyone on the edge of their seats. Will possibly drag for the Sauron player if he is finding things a bit too easy. 7.7/10

Value: For the price, you can add another player to the game, increase the enjoyment and ‘fear factor’, and get a lovely new cloth bag. I think this is a pretty decently-priced expansion. 8.5/10

Overall: While adding Sauron may make this an almost impossible game to actually win for the Fellowship, it hasn’t stopped us trying again and again and again. And even when we don’t play with Sauron, the additions are still worth getting the expansion for. If you like the base game you should definitely add this to your collection! 9.4/10 (not an average)

Review by David Plank

Zombies 2 Zombie Corps(e) Review

Zombies!!! 2 is – unsurprisingly - an expansion for the original Zombies!!! game, set on a Government Military Base, with obvious inspiration taken from George Romero’s classic zombie flick, Day of the Dead. The game is played exactly as in the original, but with the Military Base Front Gate added into the map tile deck - when this is drawn, players can choose to add tiles to either the town or the military base. The main advantage of adding tiles to the Military Base is that the second Helipad should theoretically be placed quicker as it is a smaller deck. Military base specific event cards are also included, and can be used when inside the base area. Another addition is the Motor Pool card - when this is drawn and a player reaches it, their movement roll can be increased by taking a jeep from the pool, and this continues until they enter a building.

Another addition comes in the form of the Government Enhanced Super Zombies, six of which come packaged with Zombies!!! 2. These are placed on the Top Secret Lab tile when it is drawn, and require a 5 or 6 to kill. Plus, due to their enhanced abilities, they can move two squares every turn instead of the usual one. As the Military Base is quite small, there is potential for these zombies to spread out rather quickly and make nuisances of themselves.

The whole point of Zombies!!! 2 seems to be to provide players with a new environment to roam and new zombies to kill, as well as slightly speeding up gameplay with the addition of the extra helipad. This is not necessarily accomplished however, with the Super Zombies often slowing down progress and the map sometimes getting increasingly out of control and therefore harder to traverse.There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in engaging the Super Zombies as the risk is so high - but we added a variation of our own by declaring that each Super Zombie a player kills is worth two regular ones. The only way we found to give players a reason to go towards them as well as engage them in combat was to make each Super Zombie worth 2 regular ones when killed by a player.

The fact that only six extra zombies are included is very disappointing. Often when playing the main game without an expansion the main supply of 100 zombies can run out very easily, so it would have been nice to have added an extra 20 or so to this set, especially considering its price in relation to the only slightly higher price of the core game - and much more is included with that set! With the military base growing in size alongside the town as play progresses, more and more zombies are required, and there simply aren't enough to go around.

On the whole though, Zombies!!! 2 does add just enough to the experience to make it a worthwhile purchase for fans of the original game who are hungry for more zombie killing fun. Obviously, those players turned off by the dull gameplay of the core game will not find anything to redeem it here – this really is just more of the same, albeit with glowing dead guys rather than grey ones.

Summary

Presentation:

Twilight Creations have a reputation for high standards with regards to visuals, and Zombies!!! 2 is no exception. The box does seem a little empty for the price though!

7.8/10

Clarity of Rules:

Considering this is just an expansion with minimal rules changes or variations, you’d think that the rules would be easy to understand and digest, right? Twilight Creations once again drop the ball with poorly worded rules – which include an FAQ that really should have been in reprints of the core game!

4.5/10

Game Length:

OK if used as a standalone game, but far too long if introduced into the already too long core game.

7.0/10

Value:

The glow in the dark zombies are excellent but there are only six of them. Not much else is included, although different coloured heart tiles do fix the problem of the tokens being hard to tell apart in the core game.

6.3/10

Overall:

A nice expansion for fans of the original, but those disillusioned with the core game will not find anything here that makes the experience any more palatable. Game length is just about right when used as a standalone game, and Zombies!!! 2 also fixes one or two other issues that the original game has, but expansions should not be used to correct problems in a core game – surely that’s what reprints are for?

6.4/10

(not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown

All Wound Up Review

I'll be the first to admit that i'm not the biggest fan of Twilight Creations' Zombies!!! board game. Having lost interest in board games for well over a decade, I was instantly drawn to the B-Movie pacakging. Catching my eye in the corner of a comic book store, Zombies!!! was incredibly alluring. Brilliantly designed with a keen eye for its target market, the Zombies!!! board game does seem to do everything right.

Until you play it for the fourth time with five people and it drags on for three hours with nothing but dice rolls and painfully slow movement of both players and zombies to think about. Everything is random bar the choice of where to place the tiles, the choice of where to place the zombies and tokens on said tiles, and the actual movement of the players and zombies. It's a shame - there's a good, light game in there that would be perfect for short bursts of play - but as the playing time drags on it becomes ever more noticeable that no one is ever really that involved with the game. It could easily be played solitaire, with a few rules for zombie movement thrown in to keep theplayer on his/her toes - it always feels as though other players aren't needed. So, having lost interest in Zombies!!! and discovering weightier and less random fare, I'd totally lost interest in the Twilight Creations range. Seeing All Wound Up for the first time, I was intrigued but never interested enough to actually buy it. Four comical wind up zombies are one hell of a selling point, but more tile-and-card-drawing based mechanics, coupled with the slightly unpredictable nature of the self propelled zombies were a definite turn off. Christ2mas came and went, but a visit to a family member early in the New Year brought a surprising late Christmas gift. Don't worry - i'm not going to go all Twilight Zone on you and throw in a random twist involving gremlins on a plane or a door to an alternate reality. This story is heading exactly where you think it is heading. That gift was All Wound Up. And having played a few times now, I can safely say that I think my reservations were for the most part unfounded.

The aim of the game is to race from one end of the board to the other - either from one gate to the next, or from one side of the gate to the other if the four board are set up as a square with only one gate on (this would mean the zombies completing one 'lap' of the board. As is often the case with Twilight Creations games, All Wound Up features a modular tile system. This allows the map to be arranged according to player preference every time, and as they are double sided it does allow for quite a lot of variation in board set ups.

Certain objects on the board (these are pre-printed onto the tiles) affect your zombie if your pawn walks over them. Mausoleums, when touched, force the player to take their zombie one tile back and place it facing any direction in any place on that tile. Graves see the pawn taken off the board and replaced (facing any direction) the next time an action is performed on the relevant zombie by the owning player. Brains earn the player one brain tile (these act as 'power ups' - each brain has a different power, and brains are earned either by taking a black one, or trading a currently owned brain in for the next level brain from the five ranked colours/effects on offer).

The card play is more involved than you would at first think. Dealing ten cards to each player, there then follows a round of passing cards in which each player attempts to improve the quality of their hand by passing cards to the player on their left. The amount starts with N+1 (N being the number of players) and reducing the amount passed by 1 each turn until only one card is passed along.

The player to the dealer's left then initiates a bidding round. This involves choosing a card type (available types include cards to wind your zombie and let him go with differing amounts of winds allowed, turning your zombie on the spot up to 180 degrees in a specified direction, and a card which allows an opponent to be turned 180 degrees in any direction), then laying all cards of that type on the table. Each player must then lay all of their cards of that type on the table, with the player who laid the most of that type getting to perform that action. After that, the next player initiates bidding, and bidding ends until all players have used their cards. Wild cards spice up the bidding a bit - they can be added to a card type in order to increase the bid and therefore win a round when it would have otherwise been impossible. The problem with this, as you may have gathered from the long-winded description, is that the card play is just a little too complex for the type of game that All Wound Up is striving to be.

With regards to the zombies themselves, it’s lots of fun to wind one of them up and let it loose on the board, cursing and screaming at it for drifting off or getting entangled with another undead pawn. Sometimes frustrating, often satisfying, but pretty much fun as long as you're playing with people like me who find it hilarious to watch a partially decomposed plastic figure wander noisily around the table. Beer helps, and surprisingly isn't that much of a hindrance - there are fixed rules for winding, placement etc. and once you let your little undead dude go there is no need for further dexterity or co-ordination on the part of the player!

One problem we have encountered is that the board tiles seem incredibly thin and are prone to warping, which does affect the movement of the pawns. And the pawns themselves seem a little fragile, although Twilight Creations do offer a free service to replace any that have become unusable. All Wound Up is quite a lot of fun, but definitely won't be to everybody's taste. It's a decent enough party game that thankfully uses its gimmick pretty well, with lots of parameters to ensure that the physical and unpredictable nature of playing with wind up pieces is always handled fairly. The biggest problem comes with the card rounds – the bidding/swapping rounds just seem bolted on to give the game a little complexity, and could have been handled in a much simpler way in order to speed the pace of the game up. It does sometimes take some serious card wrangling to finally get to wind up your decomposing zombie guy!

Even with this problem, Twilight Creations have definitely produced a game that has a lot of fun factor this time - and All Wound Up, unlike Zombies!!!, doesn't seem to outstay its welcome ten minutes into the game.

Summary

Presentation: As usual for Twilight Creations, the gloriously OTT art is striking and appealing, perfectly matched to its subject matter. The plastic inlay isn’t quite right for the components included though, which means you need to provide your own bags if you don’t want to be sorting out cards and brain tokens every time you play. 7.8/10

Clarity of Rules: All Wound Up seems simple on the surface but has some incredibly hard-to-digest rules, explained in the usual hamfisted manner by Twilight Creations. How hard can it be to get the rulebook right? 5.5/10

Game Length: The card play does tend to make the game needlessly drag, but this is forgotten once players are egging on their little walking dead guys. 8.2/10

Value: The neat wind-up zombies (replaceable for free direct from Twilight Creations!) make an unpredictable and nicely replayable experience. 8.5/10

Overall: The usual problems that plague Twilight Creations games are all present and correct – but for once the game is strong enough to rise above them. A mostly straightforward party game that is recommended for players looking for something a little different to the usual fare. 8.1/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown

Apples to Apples (UK Edition) Review

Apples to Apples is a party game that is instantly accessible to people (not just gamers!) of all ages. Players each have a hand of red apple cards, on which nouns are written (for example - Winston Churchill, The BBC, The Industrial Revolution or Japan). Players take turns to be the Judge, whose role plays out as follows: the Judge draws a green apple card (on which an adjective is written - for example Messy or Ridiculous), and reads it out. As quickly as possible, players must lay a card face down from their hand of red apple cards which they think is either best suited to the word that has been read out, or the card that they think the judge is most likely to pick. The Judge receives one card from each player, unless there are 6+ players in the game - in which case the last player to lay a card has to take their card back into their hand. With less than 6 players, the official rule is that players can lay two cards, although only one at a time, until there is a set maximum of cards (determined by the number of players). These cards are then shuffled by the judge who then reads them out. The judge chooses a winning card and the player that owns the relevant card wins the green apple card. The role of the Judge now passes to the left, and play continues. Once a set number of green cards has been won by one player, that player wins the game!

One of the most important aspects of Apples to Apples is that when the Judge is in the process of judging the best card, players are encouraged to try and sway his or her opinion. The discussion that this brings to the table is often very lively and very humourous, and the Judge is under no obligation to choose the most 'suitable' card - they can choose whatever card they want for whatever reason they want - their decision is final!

I have always found Apples to Apples to be a game that brings even the most timid of people out of their shell, and the fact that everybody gets their chance to be the judge means that everyone will get their chance to be heard no matter what. Despite the rather dry sounding description, it has never failed to be a hit - even among groups of totally sceptical non-gamers, it has proven to be a great success.

One complaint I do have is that the UK version of the game (many pop culture references are included in the US version that would be lost on us Brits) has horrible graphic design - very dull greys and lifeless colour, with a totally unappealing picture of an apple being compared to an apple...so not only is the design totally overrun with bland colour, but also it is very literal, with no imagination employed whatsoever. Especially compared to the vibrantly colourful US version which comes complete with appealing cartoon apples!

Despite that, Apples to Apples UK still manages to retain its charm as a quirky and highly entertaining game. It is ridiculously simple to teach, and it is even easy for onlookers to join in a game at any point in the proceedings. This is my absolute favourite party game, and I recommend it very highly indeed for those looking for a simple game to entice even the most reluctant gamers to play.

Summary

Presentation: The game is basically lots of cards, but they’re sturdy and will stand up to punishment (which they will get!). Unfortunately the general design is lazily bland, a striking difference to the nicely colourful US version. 6.9/10

Clarity of Rules: A very simple game with easy-to-learn rules that are very clear and nicely laid out. 9.1/10

Game Length: Totally customisable – despite the suggestions for when to end the game in the rules, there is no reason why players can’t play until they’re bored – which often takes quite a while! 9.3/10

Value: Lots of cards mean that players can play many games and still be surprised at cards that they are given. Ridiculously fun with even the most sceptical family members. 9.6/10

Overall: The UK reprint of Apples to Apples gives us a way to play properly without obscure American pop culture references being included, but unfortunately does get the graphic design pretty wrong. Still, Apples to Apples is a superb game that will remain fun for years to come.9.1/10(not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown

Lord of the Rings Review

This is a tricky review to write. The game is quite difficult to describe, but here goes:

Lord of the Rings is a co-operative board game. All of the players (from 2 to 5) play hobbits, all working together to dunk the ring in Mordor before Sauron overcomes the Ringbearer. But I’m sure you all know the story…

The players take control of Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin and Fatty. (Fatty Bolger was apparently a hobbit who stayed behind in Bree to fend off pursuers – he was included here purely to allow five players.) The game includes a little hobbit marker for each of these characters. Each player gets a special card showing a special ability that their hobbit has.

There are lots of cards in the game – Hobbit Cards, Gandalf Cards, Feature Cards, and the aforementioned Special Ability Cards.

There are three boards – a Master Board, and two Scenario Boards (double sided – Moria and Helm’s Deep on one, and Shelob’s Lair and Mordor on the other).

There are Shield Tokens and Life Tokens (Suns, Rings and Hearts).

There is a special dice, several white pawns, the One Ring, and Sauron himself (looking unfortunately a little like a stylised cat with one eye).

So what do you do with all these bits, then? Well, that’s when it gets a bit complicated…

The Master Board has two tracks on it – the Corruption Track and the Progress Track. All of the Hobbits begin the game on the zero space of the corruption track, and Sauron starts on space fifteen (or, if you want to make the game harder, twelve, or even ten). A white pawn starts on Bag End, and off you go.

The Progress Track on the Master Board has several locations, which are visited in turn – Bag End, Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien, Helm’s Deep, Shelob’s Lair and Mordor. When at one of the ‘nice’ places, simply follow the instructions on the Master Board next to that location (which generally results in the Hobbits gaining cards, having to play cards, and being able to basically sort themselves out). When at a ‘nasty’ location, the game really begins…

When the pawn is placed on one of the nasty locations, control passes to the correct Scenario Board, and the group has to make its way through that location before continuing on the Master Board.

Each Scenario Board has several more tracks on it, each with a symbol showing either fighting, friendship, hiding or travelling. One of these is the Master Track, and this one must be completed in order to traverse the board. There is also an Event Track down the side of each board. Events are generally bad…

Each player takes it in turn to be the Active Player (and generally is the only player allowed to play cards during his turn). He must turn tiles until a progress symbol is shown. The tiles may also cause events to occur. The Active player may also play cards to progress along the various tracks on the board. Essentially, there are a lot of decisions to be made – “Can we cope with the next event?” “Which tracks should I progress along?” and so on. Each player has his own hand of cards, and is not allowed to swap or show the cards to anyone else. Although discussion of the cards is allowed.

The events, as I said, are generally bad, but with creative card play, and forward planning, they can also generally be avoided. The Gandalf cards I mentioned before can be ‘bought’ to use at any time, and one of these allows the player to completely ignore the next event. But the events get bigger and badder as you get closer to Mordor, so you have to decide if you want to use up Gandalf’s powers now, or suffer the current event, and save the card for later use against one of the tougher events?

There is a lot of this sort of thing in the game, and with everyone working together against the board, it can get pretty fraught at times.

I won’t try to explain any more of the rules, but will go on to give my impressions of the game, now. There are wrinkles and extra titbits that I haven’t mentioned, but the general gist is there (and what I’ve said may allow you to make sense of the pictures on the back of the box, now).

This game is unlike pretty much any other I can think of in that it is a co-operative game that works. It is very interesting to watch events unfold – even more so if you are a fan of the books, but a novice to Middle Earth could easily pick it up and play it. The decisions are hard ones, and the tile play makes each game slightly different.

After a couple of plays, you learn what to expect on each board, and can anticipate more easily what cards and resources you are going to need. But it doesn’t always go according to plan thanks to the random elements involved.

In almost every game, at least one Hobbit is going to be overcome by corruption and fall under the sway of Sauron (during the game, Sauron moves slowly down the Corruption Track, whilst the Hobbits move slowly up it – if a Hobbit and Sauron ever pass one another, that Hobbit is out of the game). The tricky part is deciding who that will be. Is it safer to allow one Hobbit to ‘take’ all the corruption to save the others from being overcome, or is a better strategy to try and corrupt all the Hobbits as evenly as possible to keep them all in the game? The game is filled with tough decisions like this one.

And if you get too good at learning the foibles of the board, simply start Sauron on a lower number on his track. You’ll be hard pressed to use the same tactics against him if he begins on ten…

The game is not all good, however…

The replayability suffers a bit, as the board never changes. Every time, the scenarios are encountered in the same order, and the events stay the same on each board. It quickly becomes easy to remember what is coming next (although being able to do something about it is another matter entirely). The ability to alter the difficulty (by moving Sauron’s starting spot) rectifies this to some degree, but not entirely.

Two expansions have been released, which go a long way toward lengthening the replayability of the game, but that is a subject for different reviews…

Summary

Presentation: The artwork is fantastic. John Howe painted the boards and the box, and illustrated the rule book, and did an absolutely stunning job. He brings Lord of the Rings to life, and evokes the atmosphere of the story brilliantly. The hobbit figures are nice, if a bit bland (they are all identical except their colour), and the other components are functional. 8.1/10

Clarity of Rules: The rulebook, whilst fairly comprehensive, is actually really badly written. It takes quite a few reads, at least one game, and then another read to pick up every little detail. Things are not where you might expect them to be, which generally makes your first few games quite slow affairs, as you scour the rulebook to find an obscure instruction. And there are a couple of fairly important details missing entirely. There is an incredibly comprehensive FAQ available on the net, though, which helps counteract this problem, but it still should have been picked up before now… 8.5/10

Game Length: The game can go on a bit. It will take about two hours of playing to finish a game. However, as all the players are involved and (in theory) interested in whatever is happening at the moment, there is very little downtime before your next go. It never feels like it drags (it can be frustrating sometimes, but never boring). 9.1/10

Value: For the amount of enjoyment straight out of the box, this game is definitely worth the money. This game has had more playings at my gaming table than any other game I own. I would gladly play it any time. 8.7/10

Overall: The game succeeds admirably at creating a balanced and well thought-out co-operative experience, strongly themed, and based on a great story. It is instantly accessible (theme-wise), and after simplifying the rules, can be explained to, and enjoyed by, non-gamers as well as gamers. 9.5/10 (not an average)

Age of Mythology Review

Balancing licensed properties with original products, but making sure that components and graphic design are created to the highest standards seems to be Eagle Games' main aim. Age of Mythology: The Board Game is no exception - combining a strong license (it is based on the hugely popular Microsoft/Ensemble Studios game Age of Mythology) with superbly designed components (and lots of them!) and an excellent game system, it really is a huge leap from the licensed-from-popular-videogames properties of yesteryear (Donkey Kong? Q*Bert? No thanks!). To be fair, this is mostly due to the fact that computer and video games themselves have evolved to become exceptionally deep and complex, whereas the video to board game translations of 20 years ago were based on games with a handful of levels and hugely repetitive gameplay.

Age of Mythology comes in a sturdy and beautifully illustrated box, which contains some excellent components and gorgeous boards. The rules are well presented and while there are a few minor holes here and there, they are for the most part very well laid out with many examples of strategies and hints for play. For gamers that mostly play pretty light games, it’s a little daunting upon first inspection - but we soon found the rules to be very easy to digest and to understand.

The game itself plays well, with very fast gameplay given its complexity and the range of options available each turn. It is very intuitive, with players seeming to take only a couple of turns before strategies start to fall into place, and objectives begin to become clear. One major complaint that we do have is that of the combat system - it dramatically slows the flow of the game, and seems too reliant on luck for its outcome. At far too many times have expensive units fallen to far inferior ones, which seems to lessen the point of buying large units in the first place - especially given their cost – although this does actually serve to sometimes bring a David & Goliath feel to the battles, it is more often than not very frustrating. Also, due to the fact that only two players are involved in combat, it leaves other players with nothing to do, which can last for quite some time - even 5 minutes seems like a long time for someone simply watching two other players taking turns to throw dice! The winner of the combat is the player that throws the most sixes during each fight between two units - with surviving units remaining in the battle. As you can imagine, this is not the most elegant or strategic of battle systems.

Perhaps its biggest crime in the eyes of some players is not that it has a very slow, luck-dependent combat system, but that it doesn't play like a translation of a real time strategy game. Age of Mythology definitely plays like a board game, but both its territorial expansion and combat do make it feel like less of an RTS than something turn based. Obviously it is hard to implement a suitably 'real time' system that feels right while at the same time creating a balanced game system, but something that I feel comes close to this is - perhaps rather surprisingly - the Cheapass Games release One False Step for Mankind. As the majority of Age of Mythology: The Board Game's mechanics are so well implemented and balanced - with extra thematic flavouring compensating even further - it is hard to complain about them except to mention the fact that the RTS feel is somewhat lost in translation.

The length of the game seems just about right for a game of this complexity, and with an adequate combat variant (using 5s and 6s seems to be a very good solution) this can be streamlined even further. The mechanic of drawing cards but only being able to use three during any given turn adds a welcome frisson of agony - it is often very hard to choose what to do next, or even what cards to keep hold of or discard.

Age of Mythology comes highly recommended for players wanting to make a small leap from lighter fare into deeper games, as the level of complexity is pitched at just the right level to be understood and appreciated even by novice gamers, but it is also deep and involving enough even for those who are more experienced. A quality game that, despite not really having the feel of an RTS, definitely feels like an excellent board game - and fortunately it isn't a game that is hugely dependent on combat, so the potentially devastating effect of the cumbersome combat system doesn't hurt it too much.

Summary

Presentation: Gorgeously painted artwork adorns box, cards and boards. No inner tray to store all of the miniatures and resource cubes though, which is a massive oversight. 7.3/10

Clarity of Rules: For such an intimidatingly long rulebook, learning is made easy with well structured and helpfully illustrated rules. 9.0/10

Game Length: The game has a ‘timed’ ending, so never seems to go on too long. On the contrary, games always seem at least one turn too short to accomplish all that budding emperors want to achieve! 9.2/10

Value: Tons of components and lots of replayability means that Age of Mythology provides great value for money. 9.5/10

Overall: A superb translation of computer game to board game. While not necessarily faithful to the real time strategy style of game that the computer-based Age of Mythology is, it is a very well designed game of resource management and occasional (thankfully!) combat. 8.8/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown

Paranoia Review

My initial thought when I first heard that Paranoia would be back in print was “that makes me feel old!” I remember playing this when I was a wee bairn in shorts, just out of nappies and still calling for mummy when I grazed my knee (note: I may be exaggerating here).

I was actually very excited; I remembered getting some damn good role-playing sessions out of this game, and looked forward to seeing what they had done to it to make it still applicable to the modern day.

Allen Varney made the updates to the original masterpiece, and I have to say that he has done a damned fine job!

The book as it comes has a red cover with some really fantastic art on the front. The back brings back fond memories of what it was like to really screw with my players’ heads, and still features the old computer monitor with trite sayings from the Paranoia universe (in this case: “You are in error. No one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation”).

A small note: this was originally called Paranoia XP, but apparently a big, bad company thought that this might just be some kind of infringement on copyright laws or some such bother, and they had to pull the ‘XP’ bit. This is so ironic, it makes me laugh! The copy I have still has XP written on it; I’m expecting some corporate types to come round with a black marker-pen any day now to modify it for me…

The artwork is a bit patchy in the book, I have to say. The artist (Jim Holloway) has done his best to reproduce some of the classic pictures in the original game, and has come up with some new ones of his own in the same vein as the old ones. In this he was only partly successful. The new illustrations seem OK on the whole, but the copies of old pictures are not really up to scratch and seem almost half-finished. But he has promise, I’ll give him that (and he can draw a damn sight better than I can!).

The book contents break down like this (approximately):

Fifty pages of player information.

Fifty pages of Gamemaster information.

One-hundred pages of ‘Sourcebook’.

Forty pages of missions.

Ten pages of charts and reference thingies.

The player information is the entirety of what the players are allowed to read; knowledge of any other information in the book is treason, and that player’s character can expect a rough ride…

The player is taken through the system (such as it is), how to create characters (such as they are), how the Alpha Complex works (such as it does), and how to play your character properly. This last is the most important bit, really.

The book contains lots and lots of advice on how to play the game properly, rather than tedious background and system stuff. This is very, very useful. The players get a long introduction on how paranoid to be (very), and how often you should be trying to kill the other characters (constantly), and what to do if you get killed by another character (get them back ASAP).

There is even a little paragraph-flipping solo adventure to run through to really get you into the swing of things. And it is, of course, all brilliantly and humorously written.

The system, by the way is about as basic as you can get; roll a twenty-sided dice, and if you get under your skill or attribute score, you have done it (the margin that you get under your score tells you how well you’ve done it). The players need know nothing else (and in fact are liable to get their characters terminated if they let slip they do know anything else).

The main wrinkle to this rule comes in the form of Perversity Points. Players (not characters) earn these by being entertaining, and having their characters be … well, paranoid. Any player is able to spend these points at any time that any player is making a roll to either add or subtract from that roll. This, of course, means that you can have a ‘bidding war’ if there is a really important roll, and some characters don’t want it to succeed (thus using Perversity to subtract from the roll), and others do want it to succeed. Fun!

The Gamemaster bits are just as informative. But I can’t really go into details here, because you might be a player, and I don’t want to get your characters in trouble, do I? *innocent smile*

Suffice it to say that there are loads of cool pictures, information on what Alpha Complex is like, how to use the system to create amusing stories, and how to deal with players (“Bad player! Sit, player … siiiit! Good player! Have a Perversity Point.”). Actually, I have to say that the background information (the stuff on Alpha Complex itself) was the driest and most boring bit of the book. Not to say it was really *boring* or anything, but it is … well, kind of, um … *factual*. And reading through the service firms nearly made me want to skip bits! (Treason!) But persevere, Gamemasters (and sneaky players, if you are up for the challenge), because the information could prove useful (and is, of course, mandatory).

There are, by the way, three different ways to play Paranoia: Classic, Straight and Zap. It is up to the Gamemaster to decide how he wants to play. In Classic, you play it like slapstick. Straight is an attempt (only partially successful) to present a serious way to play the game. And Zap is like Toon – with treason and lasers!

The mission section starts by outlining the mission layout. All missions have the same basic layout and timetable (this is so that you can mess with players’ heads when they get used to the timetable by screwing around with it). The various bits and pieces are described here, and will allow a Gamemaster to go from basic idea to full-fledged scenario pretty easily. One glaring and surprising change from classic Paranoia is that R&D may not be involved! I was scandalised, but let’s just say that, if you should want it, it will be there for you. And if you don’t, there are lots of other alternatives for you to inflict on your poor and terrified players…!

The mission included in the book is great. It is humorously written, and gives your players a very good intro into the world of Paranoia (Formerly XP).

So, how does it play? My game took place with three PCs (two of whom were played by people who had never heard of Paranoia before). The game moved along pretty rapidly, and I soon put the fear of Computer into my players – as early on the newbies thought that they could get out of any sticky situation by calling on Friend Computer (oh, the naiveté!). After a couple of times of the Computer just helping make a bad situation worse, they soon got the message.

The system rarely gets in the way, and I never struggled to keep up with what the players were doing, or got lost in charts and tables looking for expected outcomes or anything. The characters provided for the scenario were well-written and encouraged back-stabbing and double-dealing every step of the way.

If any major problem can be found with the session we ran, it’s that I had almost too much material to work with – what with mutations, secret societies, service firms, quirks, scenario events, NPCs, and general Computer mayhem, I sometimes felt that I was leaving too much out in the rush to actually complete the story in the scenario (there is enough material in the background and the scenario to just keep it going and going and going…). I did struggle a little with conveying the correct atmosphere to the players – especially the new players. I worried (perhaps a bit too much) that they weren’t ‘getting it’, and tried to push them into action, when maybe they weren’t ready.

The ending was a little anti-climactic, and the players themselves only really ‘got’ the scenario once it had completed and I explained exactly what just happened. I think they enjoyed themselves – I know I did, and had a blast revisiting my ‘role-playing roots’.

Summary

Presentation: Some patchy artwork in the book mars it, but generally it is acceptable. The writing is top-notch, and I couldn’t put the book down (a rare find for a role-playing book). The book looks chunky, weighty, and kind of imposing (with all that red on the cover…). 7.6/10

Clarity of Rules: This is about as simple as role-playing rules get. They are laid out in an informative and entertaining manner, and are easy to get to grips with. I can’t go into any details, because you never know when a sneaky player might be reading this… 8.9/10

Game Length: Well, this actually suffers a bit. I planned on running the introductory scenario in one evening, but there was just so much stuff to fit in that we ended up having to play on a second night as well. Of course, that may not be a bad thing if you are really enjoying the game… 6.7/10

Value: Role-playing books are notoriously expensive (for a book, that is). However, when you consider that you will get many evenings of enjoyment out of the book (once you’re spent a few days reading it as well), then the value increases dramatically. For me, twenty quid spent on a game like this, which will see (hopefully) repeated play at my table is more than worth it. 9.5/10

Overall: A great improvement over the original in all but artwork. This is obviously a labour of love for the author, and that comes across in the writing and content of the book. It plays very well, and helps the Gamemaster (and player) along at every step of the way. If only all role-playing games gave this much information on how to actually play the game! 9.5/10 (not an average)

Review by David Plank

Whoops! - Reviews Published by Accident

It looks like some of our draft reviews were published by accident, sorry for any inconvenience caused by chucking out 4 chunky reviews in one day! We've removed them for now but they will be reappearing sometime in the future when they have been sucked through the tidy and add an image filter. ;-)