Forbidden Island Review

A game that I heard great things about and finally got an opportunity to play (thanks to my wife for the present) was Forbidden Island.

In Forbidden Island, each of the players takes on the role of an adventurer on an ancient deserted island. The adventurers are attempting to discover the 4 ancient artifacts on the island, but lo and behold, the island is booby-trapped and is starting to sink. In order for the adventurers to win, they must collect the 4 artifacts, all return to the helicopter pad, and then take off. How a normal turn will work while attempting to accomplish this goal is as follows: take 3 actions (move, trade cards, return a tile to a non-flooded state), draw 2 cards (hoping to not get a "Waters Rise"), and play as the board to flood a certain number of tiles. (Yes, this is very Pandemic-ish).

The first pro of Forbidden Island is that it is simple to learn, and quick to play (and can be played with all ages - the game says 10 and up, but if you have smart children, you could probably do it at 8). The instructions are only about 5 half-sized pages, and the game claims to take 30 minutes. As opposed to lots of games that horribly lie about estimated time, this is actually a pretty close estimate. Fortunately, whereas many games equate "quick" with "lame" or "non-strategic", Forbidden Island actually has enough depth to it that you do not get bored after the first play, but you actually want to play again. I will say this again: this is actually a quick game with depth to it. Hoorah, we have found one!

The second pro is that it has an adjustable difficulty level. When first learning how to play on Novice, we smoked the game. Had this not been adjustable, I would have dropped the game as quickly as I could. However, when we were looking for a real challenge and played it on Legendary, we lost. As bad as it sounds, I'm glad we lost. If we had won each time we played, I would have also moved on from the game. With the varying difficulty, there is enough challenge to keep me coming back to play it more.

The final pro I will mention is that the game itself (components) are very high quality compared to the cost. It comes in a nice tin, and the artifacts are quality molded plastic, and the list price is around $15. Honestly, this is what scared me off from the game at first, and why it took me so long to try it. I thought that the game must be pretty lousy for $15, but I'm glad to say that I was wrong.

Now for the cons: the players did not seem especially balanced. Here's an example: the pilot versus the diver. The pilot is able to, once per turn, take one action to move anywhere on the board. The diver is able to move through sunk tiles. If it were me, I'd rather have the pilot every time.

My next con is that there seemed to be too many times in which you had nothing to do with some of your actions. Obviously this happened more on the easy difficulty settings than the harder ones, but it would've been nice if there were a few more things you could do. (Yes, I realize that I bragged about the depth of the game a lot, but this still bothered me.)

The final con was related to the hand limit.  This is especially problematic in a smaller game - such as 2-player.  The hand limit is 5 cards.  There are 5 copies of each artifact card in the deck and you need 4 of them in order to discover the artifact.  The problem comes in when you wind up having two different artifacts that you have multiple copies of.  You will have to throw away enough copies of one of the artifacts that you will not possibly be able to discover it until the second time through the draw deck.  This means that no matter how well you played, because of the hand limit and unfortunate drawing, you are guaranteeing that you get at least 4 "Waters Rise" cards (the number in the deck).  Since one of the ways you lose is by having the waters rise too many times, this just seemed frustrating as you may wind up losing in a way that could not possibly be avoided if the "Waters Rise" come up the second time through the deck before the artifact cards that you needed.

Overall, Forbidden Island gets an 8.0/10. I would recommend playing Pandemic first, but honestly, if you do that, it may ruin you for Forbidden Island. It is really just Pandemic-lite in my opinion. My other final point of note is this: you will wind up playing on Legendary (as we did) if you want any kind of challenge.  Just know this going in so that you won't be disappointed.

If you want another opinion, check out the Board Game Family's Forbidden Island Review; or if you want to read about other cooperative games, check out Flash Point: Fire Rescure, Defenders of the Realm, and Yggdrasil.

Josh's note after initial posting: after more plays of this game, I must give it credit that sometimes it can be quite challenging even on the easier settings, as I found myself challenged and even badly defeated on "Normal" mode.

Puerto Rico Review

Now it is time to review a game that is on my all-time classics list: Puerto Rico.

In Puerto Rico, each of the players takes on the role of a governor on the newly discovered island of Puerto Rico. As governor, they are in charge of planting new fields, building public buildings, ensuring that they have enough workers to man their buildings and fields, sending goods back to the old world, selling goods, etc. At the end of the game, whichever governor has ruled most successfully (as determined by victory points) wins the game.

The first significant pro for Puerto Rico is related to a game mechanic that it introduces - roles. When playing the game, the players will take turns selecting which "role" they will implement - Captain, Mayor, Trader, Settler, etc. Within each role, the person who selects it will get to perform that role's action first, and will also get a bonus for being the player to select it, but then each other player will have the opportunity to also perform that action. (For example, if I take on the role of "Builder", I will be the first person to have the opportunity to build a building, and my bonus is that I can build it for 1 doubloon cheaper than list price. After I purchase my building, however, then each other person in turn order will get an opportunity to build a building.) This mechanic works amazingly well, and forces players to strategize by determining when the best time is to take on each role. Since he knows that whatever role he chooses could help other players too, he must ensure that whatever he selects will help him more than anyone else.

The next pro of Puerto Rico is the balance in the game. As I briefly stated before, each time a player selects a role, he must determine which role he can perform to maximize his benefit and to minimize the benefit of all of the other players. Here's an example: if a player chooses to ship goods back to the mainland, he will get an extra victory point for being the "Captain." However, if other players will be able to ship more goods, then he may wind up having a net loss of victory points because they will be able to ship more, and so this would be a poor selection.  Another example: if a player has 10 doubloons, and he looks around and sees that no other players have any money, it would be an ideal time to be a builder because he would be able to purchase whichever building he would like without anybody else getting any benefit.

The third pro to mention about Puerto Rico is the sheer number of strategic aspects in the game. (This pro is specifically important because these factors change based on number of players, so this adds to the replayability of the game because a successful 3-player game's strategy may fail miserably in a 5-player game and vice versa). Some of the things that a player must balance between include which type of crops to plant - should they plant corn which can easily be grown and shipped, but is not worth anything to sell, or coffee which they cannot grow as much of, but will sell for significantly more. Are all of the other players growing a certain crop? This could mean that there will be a higher chance that there will be a ship containing that good in the Captain phase, but it also might get full more quickly. Players must determine which buildings to build and when - would it be better to get a wharf and have a guaranteed ability to ship goods, or to get a harbor and gain extra victory points when successfully shipping goods. The strategic elements go on and on.

Finally, even though Puerto Rico is so balanced and contains so many strategic elements, it is also very easy to learn and teach other players how to play. The game can be played in around an hour, and can be taught in about 5-10 minutes (from the instructions, it will be a bit longer), and so the appeal of the game is very widespread.

Overall, I give Puerto Rico a 9.5/10. It is one of the best games that I have ever played, and I would recommend it to absolutely anybody that enjoys playing board games. If you have not played this game, go find a copy and try it.

Puerto Rico on Noble Knight Games (about $25)
Puerto Rico on Funagain Games
Puerto Rico on Amazon (about $40)

Axis and Allies: Pacific (2000 Edition) Review

A game that I finally pulled back out of my closet to give it another shot was Axis & Allies Pacific.

In Axis and Allies Pacific, each of the players is taking on the role of a super power in the Pacific Theater during World War II (and if you are playing 2-player, then one person takes on both the United States and the United Kingdom). From here, the Japanese player is attempting to financially outlast the rest of the world, whereas the Allied powers are attempting to either capture Japan or make them financially irrelevant by taking (almost) all of the countries that they control. If you have played Axis and Allies in any version before, you will be very familiar with the mechanics of Pacific, but there will still be a few things like Kamikaze attacks, Naval and Air bases, and the new victory conditions that you will need to become familiar with.

One of the biggest pros with Pacific along with all Axis and Allies games is that they have a good unit and purchasing system. There are different units, each of which has it's own movement, attack rating and defense rating, but the different units cost different amounts of money "IPC's". You earn IPC's at the end of each turn based on which countries you control and throughout the game this amount will fluctuate based on what you have successfully invaded and what has been taken over from other hostile powers. I believe that Axis and Allies invented this system a long time ago, and it has been used in all of their boardgames since because, frankly, it works very well.

The next thing that I like about Pacific is that it gives you a change of pace from the normal Axis and Allies. If you are a true fan of Axis and Allies (and if you're not, why would you be playing it anyway?) then you will probably get tired of playing the normal scenario. Pacific allows you to focus on elements of the game that are sometimes less consequential in the original version of the game like naval combat. In Pacific, if you do not focus on the naval aspect of the game then you can expect to be completely slaughtered - you are unable to move any of your units around or get any strategic positioning without naval combat in this version of the game. In addition, the change in victory conditions in Pacific also forces the players to think through their strategies a little more, and the game seems weighted well for the new victory conditions. (Whereas Japan starts with a large number of units and only has to "survive" a certain amount of time in the game in order to win, the Allied powers, specifically the United States start with economies that are more than triple that of Japan.)

A final pro that Pacific introduced was the ability to blockade trade routes.  Since all of the islands are only useful if trade can get to them, Pacific focused on this feature.  To do this, the game established some water spaces that are on "convoy" routes - if the Japanese player can take these water spaces from the Allies, then they can deprive them of IPC's, even though it doesn't gain any for the Japanese player.  There are also islands that are part of trade routes and so, if the Japanese player is able to block the water around the island then it prevents anyone from gaining IPC's from the territory.  If the Japanese player can take the island as well, then they are also able to gain these IPC's.

Though there are a lot of very positive aspects of Pacific, there are a few drawbacks. First, all of the drawbacks of the original Axis and Allies are still present - setup time, length of time to play, and dice rolling. Briefly, the game takes quite a while to setup. It also takes several hours to play (which is a pro or con depending on who you ask). Finally, all of the battles are determined by rolling dice. If you are able to roll dice very well and your opponent is not, then you will have a significant advantage beyond what any strategy can give.

The next con (this one unique to Pacific) is that you can wind up spending a lot of time fighting over territories that don't matter.  Whereas in the original Axis and Allies each territory was worth something, even if it was just one IPC, in Pacific there are lots of territories (most of China and tons of the islands) that are worth absolutely nothing.  None of the territories I'm referring to are worth IPC's, but a lot of the islands aren't even useful for bases (naval or air) - they are just places that you can land troops.  If you can cut off all of the transports to that island, it doesn't even matter who controls the island itself.

Overall, Axis and Allies: Pacific receives a 7.5/10. I kicked this number around for a while and if you ask me in 30 minutes it may be an 8.0 instead, but I think that it is just a touch worse than the original Axis and Allies (and also less innovative - I give credit for innovation). If you are a fan of Axis and Allies and looking for a way to play it a little differently, or really enjoy the naval combat part of World War II, then you should definitely look into the game. If you are new at the Axis and Allies system, however, I would recommend trying the original Axis And Allies. (Note: I think these games are out of print, so you may wind up paying a ton if you're not careful, but the new Axis and Allies Europe 1940 and Axis and Allies Pacific 1940 look promising. I believe you are able to play both games separately but also put them together for the full war if you would like.)

If you like war games, you should definitely check out Risk: Legacy, Risk 2210 AD, and Test of Fire: Bull Run 1861.

Arkham Horror Review

When getting together with my sister and brother-in-law, it is a time for playing games.  This time, they brought one, and so I got to play Arkham Horror.

In Arkham Horror, each of the players takes on the role of an investigator attempting to determine what is causing the influx of monsters into the city of Arkham. When doing this, the investigators will often encounter monsters which they will either need to sneak past or fight, and will also be sucked through gates and find themselves in other worlds. Fortunately, if they can find their way back from the other world, they will have the opportunity to close (and maybe even seal) the gate that led them there - thus preventing more monsters from escaping from that world for a short time. If they are able to seal enough gates or close all of the open gates, then they are able to ward off evil and restore peace to Arkham. If they become too overrun with monsters, then they will either be destroyed or have to fight the supreme evil monster in an attempt to restore peace.

Arkham Horror had several definite pros. The first pro was replayability. The game provides you with enough different investigators and supreme evil monsters (or whatever they are called) to play the game through several times without it feeling the same. The supreme evil monsters are also different enough and affect the game just enough that they prevent the feel of repetition (as opposed to a game like Castle Ravenloft where the game is the exact same until you get to the final monster). In addition, there are enough random monsters, items, encounters, etc that, though you will probably see the same ones several times if you play repeatedly, you will not feel like you know them all (until you play it a whole lot - but that happens with every game).

The next nice aspect of Arkham Horror is that it is a very challenging but still possible to defeat cooperative game. This is a very difficult balance to reach, and shows that a lot of play testing has taken place. Many cooperative games are far too easy, which causes players to lose interest; many other cooperative games feel impossible, which has the same effect. Arkham Horror seems to be one of the games that has struck the difficult to achieve balance between challenging yet possible.

However, it is not all roses and sunshine in Arkham Horror (ok, well, it is a horror game so none of it is roses and sunshine, but you get my point). The first aspect that detracts from the game to me is the length of time to play. Our first game took 5.5 hours, and the second one took "only" 2 hours (because we were completely decimated by the game). I think that if we were to continue playing this, it would average around 3.5-4 hours. This is a very long amount of time for most gamers, and so it will probably cause you to wind up playing this game less than most of your others.  Plus it is difficult to keep my attention for quite that long, and, in fact, during the 5.5 hour game I found my interest occasionally waning.

The next negative aspect that I found in Arkham Horror was that the encounters were a bit too random. The more you play the game, the more familiar you will be with the potential encounters, which will help solve this problem. However, when we played, we would have "Other World" encounters that could range anywhere from helping you gain Sanity, Clue Tokens, etc, to causing you to almost instantly die. It seemed very difficult to actually prepare your investigator to go into the Other World in an attempt to close a gate. This detracted from the strategy side of the game as you wind up just going to the Other World and hoping that you can make it, whether your character is at full health or about to die - it took luck to successfully make it through either way.

Overall, I give Arkham Horror a 7.5/10. I debated this score anywhere from 7.0-8.5, as I think that some people will love the game and others will be less excited by it. I think that the two major things that will turn people off from Arkham Horror are the length and genre of the game. If these things don't deter you, however, then I would say you should try the game. If you really like the horror genre, I would also recommend Betrayal at House on the Hill, which is semi-cooperative and can be played quite a bit faster.

As a final note, if you like zombies and horror themed games, you might also check out Nightfall, Resident Evil: Deck Building Game, and Zombie Dice.