Review of Martin Wallace's London

Review

London

Martin Wallace

Treefrog Games

We were unable to get our hands on the limited edition of London, the latest from Treefrog Games, but the new print-run has finally arrived and we have been putting the game through its paces.  London appears to be famed game designer Martin Wallace’s take on the card-tableau, economic-engine games like San Juan and Race for the Galaxy—though minus the role-selection mechanism found in those two games.   

The first thing that differentiates the game from the other economic-engine card games is that London has a board.  The top half of the board features an attractive map of London from just after the great fire as well as a card .  The game is themed around re-building the great city and trying to get rich (or at least make a profit) while doing so.  The board is divided up into twenty boroughs with the River Thames pretty dividing them in half.   The bottom half of the board features the card display, where cards will be placed when expended during the game.

The game play is very simple.  During a players turn, he or she must decide between four possible actions:

1. Playing cards
2. Running his or her city
3. Buying Land
4. Drawing Cards

The cards in the game are mostly structures that can be built.  Structures have a variety of different game effects, but mostly they allow the player to earn money, earn victory points, or discard poverty cubes (more on those later).  In general cards are paid for by expending a card of the matching color from the player’s hand on to the card display.  Expended cards are placed face-up and can be drawn by the other players on later turns. 

When a player decides his or her city is ready, they can “run” the city.  This allows them to activate any or all of the cards in the city and benefit from their effects.  Most cards can only be “ran” once and must be turned face down after the phase.  The player must then take poverty cubes based on the number of stacks of cards in his or her city and card in hand.  Poverty cubes are worth negative VPs at the end of game and managing them is one of the major elements of the game.

That is where the board comes into play.  Each time you compute the poverty cubes after running the city, you can subtract a cube for every borough you occupy in London.  The borough are also worth VPs at the end of the game.

When all cards have been drawn and each player has had a final turn, the player who has acquired the least poverty cubes gets to discard all of theirs.  All other players then discard the same number.  The value of the remaining cubes in subtracted from the victory points earned through cards and land buys.  Highest score wins. 

So, the game is pretty easy to play, but is it any good?  I really like it though I have some reservations.  I think making expended cards available for drawing in later turns works brilliantly—making the decision of what to play and how to pay for it more interactive than it would normally be.  I’ve heard the game described as multi-player solitaire, but I think this mechanism forces players to pay close attention to the opponent’s strategy and card needs. 

I also like the poverty cube mechanic.  I love how difficult it makes it to decide when to run your city.  I love how it makes each card in hand not only a tool but also a liability.  I love how absolutely brutal it is to the person who fails to manage their poverty.  If you end up with over ten of the cubes, each additional one is worth a full -3 VPs, which is brutal in a game that seems to consistently feature close scores. 

I do dislike the way poverty cubes are handled at the end of the game.  The benefit of discarding cubes is a lot more beneficial to the players who are lagging behind than the one who was winning the poverty battle.  In our last game, dropping the five cubes to match the leaders discard saved me and a second player fifteen points and her only five.   It wasn’t enough to help me, but the other player who was saved the fifteen points won the game.  I think I’d rather see the other players get to discard half the number of cubes of the winner, rounded down.  That said, I haven’t played enough games to be sure, so I’ll be playing by the actual rules for a while still.  It may turn out that I’m wrong.  I’ll gladly defer to the award-winning, prolific game designer for now.

The other problem I have with the game is that the board play is pretty uninteresting.  You need to buy land to get the poverty bonus and to draw cards.  While, you where to build based on the cost of the land, number of victory points, and number of bonus cards, the decision was often forced on you by the game situation. 

Despite these misgivings, I’m having a blast with London.  It is easy to play and easy to teach but still has the aspects of Martin Wallace games that I find interesting, specifically a punishing economic system that must be carefully managed. 

Score 8/10

Rockstar's new L.A. Noire trailer a thing of beauty

Rockstar's last effort, Read Dead Redemption, was my favorite game of last year.  Film Noir is my favorite film genre, and I count many films from the genre in my personal top films of all time:  Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon among them.  So, it will be no surprise to hear that L.A. Noire is my most anticipated new game of the coming year.  Today, Rockstar released the second trailer for the game.  It does nothing to dampen my excitement.  In fact, it is even more intriguing than the first glimpse we got of the game.  

Not much of a hint of game play in this one.  Instead, we get a great look at Rockstar's amazing new facial capture technology.  Since the player will make decisions in the game based on whether or not he believes what a character is saying, Rockstar has gone great lengths to develop a new method of capturing facial movement from live actors.  And, it is amazing.  If what we see in the trailer is repeated throughout the game, it will represent a major breakthrough.  

As far as the story goes.  Hunting down a serial killer isn't exactly an original plot, but doing so in 1940's Hollywood with full noir trappings works for me.  I hope that the game expands the concept of the adventure game and isn't GTA Noir, and all indications are that it will.  We've seen glimpses of the grilling of suspects that speak of some highly original game play elements.  It will be hard to wait until May 17th to see all that the game offers.  

A Review of Pirate versus Pirate

Review

Pirate versus Pirate

Out of the Box Publishing

Designed by Max Winter Osterhaus, Ellen Winter, and Al Waller

Linked in name, art design, and cute little sculptures, Pirate versus Pirate is a spiritual sequel to last year’s Ninja versus Ninja. I liked that two-player game, but given that two-players isn’t the way I usually play games, Ninja versus Ninja was pretty quickly moved to the back shelf of the game closet.  Pirate versus Pirate is a bit of a rarity as it is designed specifically for three players.  Though I’m sure two-player games are more played and more common than three-player games in general, I find myself in three-player games more often than any other number.  The problem with that is most games are terrible with three players—at least games that have any kind of conflict. Most commonly, two of the players in a game start picking on one another, and the third player breezes to an easy victory.  I’ve also seen a lot of games where two players both pick on the third player and that player has no chance of winning.  In either scenario, fun, certainly, has not been had by all.  So, when I heard that Pirate versus Pirate was primarily a three-player game (it will play two, though I don’t recommend it), I was both excited and worried.  If it handled three players well, it would certainly find some table time in my group.  If not, like Ninja versus Ninja, it would likely sit on the shelf gathering dust.

So, how did it turn out?  Pretty well. 

First, I’ll take a look at the components.  As you can see from the picture below, Pirate versus Pirate is a cool-looking game. The pirate sculpts from Dork Tower’s John Kovalic are just awesome. I didn’t really expect him to be able to top the ninjas from Ninja versus Ninja, but the pirates are even cooler looking. I found myself wondering what other games I could use them for so they could be seen by more players. The board is a triangular map board with three silver coins and one gold coin placed in the middle of the board, equidistant from the three starting areas.  The coins are attractive, but made of light plastic making them feel pretty insignificant in the hand.

And, it would make sense if they were heavier and more impressive, because the coins are the focus of the game.  To win the game, a player must pick up two silver coins or the single gold coin and return it to the appropriate spot on their home base.  Moving is accomplished by rolling two four-sided dice (These are cleverly designed four-sided dice, but I think I would rather have the traditional four-sided dice).    So, there is the roll-and-move component so common in traditional American board games and so maligned by the designer game community.  If you have too much of an allergy to randomness in your board games, look elsewhere.  The dice rolls are of upmost importance.  If one player rolls way above average and another way below average, the high-roller will win every time regardless of strategy. 

Luckily, there are plenty of rolls in the game, so the luck usually balances out.  And, you are not always looking for a high roll because of the strict movement rules.

• ·         A player must move just one pirate a number of spaces equal to the total of the two dice
• ·         A player may not move through another pirate (the opponent’s or his own)
• ·         A player may pick up a coin mid-move, but cannot drop off a coin mid move nor deliver a coin mid-move
• ·         While carrying a coin, a pirate may not move through or onto a spot containing a coin, nor may he attack another pirate
• ·         A pirate must land on the coin drop-off spot by exact count of his total move

These rules mean rolling high isn’t always the answer (though it will help you keep the action on your corner of the board), and they mean you are often forced to make moves you might otherwise not make in order to not waste a roll.

A turn of the game goes very quickly.  The player rolls the dice, totals them, and moves that exact number of spaces.  If the player can land on an opposing pirate by exact count, that pirate is removed from the game.  If a player moves onto or through a space containing a coin, he picks it up.  Then, the next player goes and repeats the process.  This continues until one of the players has met the victory conditions.  This will involve a lot of jockeying around to get your own pirates out of the way and clear a path to your boat, a process often aided by your opponent’s as they take out figures through attacks. 

So, does the game effectively deal with the three-player problems?  I think it does to a point.  Because everyone must venture out of their area to grab coins, and because those coins are limited, it is impossible to lose focus and ignore someone going for an easy victory.  I suppose that another common problem with three-player games is still a problem:  often Player B could stop Player A from winning by attacking the figure that is carrying the deciding coin but chooses to focus on his own coin and let Player C deal with it.  If this happens and Player C gets no rolls that allow him to reach Player A’s pirate, then the game is handed to Player A.  It is a charge that can be leveled at most three-player games and I’ve seen it happen with P vs P.  That said, the game is light and fast, so I don’t need it to be perfectly balanced, just fun and not obscenely imbalanced, and P vs. P is good on that front.   

For a roll and move game, it ends up being pretty clever and interesting.  As long as none of the players spends too much time analyzing their board position and attempting to make the perfect move, the game is light and fast-playing.  It works as a kid’s game.  It works as filler on game nights.  Given its price and the awesome components, I have no problem recommending the game for families and for gamers looking for a unique, three-player filler.

Fantasy Flight Previews New Cosmic Encounter Expansion

The Fantasy Flight blog has just posted another preview of the new Cosmic Encounter expansion Cosmic Conflict.  This update details a new race, The Saboteur, who has the ability to booby trap his home planets to potentially take out invading forces.  Looks pretty cool and very different from existing races.

Check it out here:

Cosmic Conflict

Review: Greenpeace's Anti-oil Propaganda Board Game: Deepsea Desperation

Review

Deepsea Desperation

Terror Bull Games

Free Print-and-Play

**Click Here to Download from Greenpeace.org**

Normally it would not occur to me to review a free print-and-play game released as a political tool on a company website.  It is not that I don't find the use of board games as a propaganda tool interesting.  It is just that free print-and-play games usually suck.  Deepsea Desperation, however, has a huge advantage.  It wasn't designed by a sub-committee in the marketing department, but, instead, sprung from fertile, and wholeheartedly satirical, minds of the guys a Terror Bull Games--a company actually formed and dedicated to the idea of using board games as political and social tools.  Terror Bull's War on Terror is easily the best satirical board game of the last four decades or so, finally giving the classic Nuclear War some company in the satirical-board-games-that-are-actually-fun-to-play pile.  Also of note, Terror Bull likely attracted Greenpeace's attention with an earlier print-and-play game inspired by an oil spill--Operation Bullshit Plug (note the bolded letters).  

Now we get Deepsea Desperation, commissioned by Greenpeace, and aimed not just at BP, but at BIG OIL in general.  In the game, players take the role of either heroic Greenpeace activists or evil oil company drillers.  Each side takes turns performing one of three available actions.  A sure sign this is a "real" board game is that the two sides have assymetrical choices and goals.  On the activist's turn, he or she can choose between these three options:

• Move 
• Occupy oil company ship (which costs the company money, but sends the activist ship back to its starting spot)
• Create a marine reserve in the four spots orthogonal to the activist ship.  These spots may no longer be drilled.

One the company players turn, he or she has the following choices:

• Move
• Lobby (which removes reserve tokens adjacent to the company ship)
• Drill ("...baby drill!") Company player rolls a die twice and gains money equal to the difference between the first and second die roll.  If a double is rolled, a "blowout" occurs and animals in adjacent squares are killed.  The deeper the water, the larger the blowout.

The goal for the activists is to form nature preserves on all the deep-sea spaces.  The oil company is simply trying to make money.  Both sides can lose if all of one animal species is wiped out during a blowout.  Of course, to ratchet up the satire a bit, you could always considered wiping out a species to be an alternative win condition for the oil company. 

And that alternative win condition might actually be needed to balance the game out.  The activists seem to have an advantage in our test games and I found myself drilling the heck out of deep sea spots hoping for a massive blowout just to keep the goody two-shoes activists from claiming a victory.  Regardless, the game is a cool little filler.  It plays in around ten minutes and actually provides some opportunity for playing well and earning a win.  I'm going to throw my copy inside my Nuclear War box and maybe it will get some play in the coming years--something I wouldn't have expected when I first heard of the game.

Score:  7/10