Poison by Playroom Entertainment:
Poison is a really simple card game, and when I mean simple, I mean I was able to pick up the game in about three minutes and win my first game by using simple strategies. The cards and components are about what you expect them to be quality-wise. The cards come in four vibrant colors with clear artwork and numbering. I am confused however why this game comes with three large card cauldrons, I get that they add to the theme, but they are really unnecessary to the overall gameplay and require the box to be the size akin to a Munchkin box. In my opinion this game would be much better served by coming in a simple card sleeve like Fluxx.
Poison plays relatively fast and it doesn't take much thinking or to play. Because of this I couldn't recommend it to someone looking for it to be a staple game in a game night. However it is an excellent ice breaker game as everyone at the table is almost guaranteed to get the core concepts quickly, and everyone can be competitive right off the bat. I also imagine this game being a good game to play with kids 10-14, and to play with those who have lighter gaming tastes.
Would I play it again? Yes, but only if I were waiting for the real game to start. It serves its purpose as being a time filler, but personally I want something a little more substantial. In all honesty, I have played games of Chicken Fight with more tension and strategy than Poison.
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| ...err, no. |
Martian Fluxx by Looney Labs
Fluxx has got to be one of the most tired, used up franchises in gaming today. The original Fluxx is a simple elegant game which requires thought and strategy to win the game. However the multiple Fluxx copies that came out after the original game only serve to convolute what should be a simple rules set.
The cards are Fluxx quality, really nothing suprising considering once you've seen one version of Fluxx you've pretty much seen them all. I thought the artwork was pretty crappy, but then again I wasn't really imagining top notch art from a Fluxx game.
Frankly I was bored with the game before we even started. What I can't understand, is how a game with ever changing rules ends up being the same game each time you play. There is very little innovation to the Fluxx formula, aside from the addition of some overly wordy special rules to some of the keepers which just creates chaos when you're trying to play a six player game with twenty keepers on the board. The Creepers are annoying considering there are about a billion of them in the deck, and they aren't nearly a victory roadblock as they were in Monty Python Fluxx (in fact the game I played, the winning player won with six creepers in front of him).
Would I play it again? No, dear lord no. Fluxx is a game best reserved for those moments when you bored. The original is a decent, cute game that is best played for a half hour and then put back on the shelf in favor of other activities. Martian Fluxx is an exercise in patience and is probably one of the least fulfilling games I've played in a really long time. Looney Labs, it's time to put this franchise to rest.
Tobago by Bruce Allen
Tobago is an interesting treasure hunting/deduction game that requires players to deduct where certain treasure are on a mysterious, modular, jungle. I didn't know anything about this game going in to it so I was able to judge it with an open mind. At first the rules are really, REALLY difficult to wrap your head around considering we were told simply to set up the board without knowing what certain components were or how anything worked. This could be a fault of the game, or could be a fault of the person teaching the game because he didn't seem very knowledgeable about Tobago.
Anyway, the components were great, for the most part. The little jeeps, huts, palm trees and moai heads are brilliant, and the board itself is colorful and appealing. I'm not entirely sure why the board had to be modular though, the nature of how Tobago plays almost guarantees that the treasures are going to be located in different places every game anyway so the point of the modular board is pretty moot in my opinion. My only major gripe is that the treasure pieces are just tiny wooden squares. This wouldn't be so bad if all of the other pieces hadn't been so well done, but when you set a high standard of quality and then take a step back on one component, it looks lazy.
This game has a HUGE learning curve, and I think that it could have been much simpler to accomplish the same effect. But the method in which you deduct where the treasure is made me get a headache, and there were points in the game where I couldn't make a good play because there was literally nothing I could do. There are some parts of the game where you have to move jeeps around the board to collect treasures and amulets, and I didn't really think this part of the game was really necessary because you can easily win the game without doing both. I didn't move the entire game, instead choosing to uncover where exactly the treasures were, and I can definitely see where you could win the game this way. After the game was over, I was left with the sensation that there was another half of the game I hadn't played, and judging by the reactions of the other people at the table, they felt the same way.
Would I play it again? I might, if I were in the right mood. I think this is definitely one of those games you have to play one time through before you really 'get' it. It plays relatively quick, or at least it would have if our teacher knew what he was doing. To be fair to Tobago, I don't know if I really got the whole experience so I will have to give it another play before passing judgement.
Aside from these games I have gotten in some great games of Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, and Shadows Over Camelot at All Ways Gaming's game night. It's great to be getting in with a group of gamers and I have a feeling i'm just scratching the surface of the fun to be had.
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