Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 23, 2006 11:03:38 GMT -5
Quickly - a fun game, less 'military' then most Avalon Hill, nice and quick.
Summary: Each player controlls a giant monster (Kong like Ape, 'zilla like Lizard, a floating eye, puple ooze monster, etc). and a faction of the military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines). The goal is to become the biggest monster of them all by winning the monster challenge. The challenge happens at a set time (after a certain number of hexes have been stomped) and up until then the players attempt to buff up thier monsters by destroying cities, visiting mutation sites and stomping infamy sites (things like Mount Rushmore, or Fort Knox). All this time the players use their military units to try to slow down the other monsters. Its a fairly simple hex based game, that plays quickly. The monsters can't fight each other until the end game, and the military units keep getting tougher as players earn 'military research cards'.
The good: the monsters are great, both what they included and the playing pieces (pre painted plastic). The componenets are all nice and the military units will look familiary to Axis and Allies and other AH game players. The fact that you play the good and the bad, both a monster and the military is really cool and leave open a ton of strategies. The game was really simple to learn but seems to have no one way to win or best strategy and it seems pretty open ended due to the size of the board, the number of monsters, and the possible monster/miliary combinations. The mutation and military research cards add to this variety as well. I doubt you would ever have two games got the same. The monster battle at the end was fun but maybe lopsided.
The bad: Many small bits that may be hard to replace if lost. You get just enough to play. I prefer when games come with a few extras of the small bits. The lack of variety between the military types was a bit disapointing, the main thing you see are tanks rocket launchers and planes, and only the army doesn't have planes. There is some variety in the stats of the units but not much. There is a lot of randomness in the battles. Pretty much everything in the game need a 4 or higher on a d6 to do damage, this means that 50% of the time you hit, 50% you miss. The dice played a big factor. Also when you smash a city you get a number of dice in hit points also uping the random factor. This will probably make the game more appealing to non-strategy game fans but I did find it higher then necessary.
The ugly: Steamrolling. We only played it once and I am not sure it would be like this every time, but it seems like once a player gets far enough ahead it is neigh impossible to stop them. Of course spotting this early meant that whoever was just a bit ahead got teamed up by military forces and beat down, so maybe it wasn't that bad. But it did seem like it could be a problem.
Overall: a fun game, better then I actually expected. Now that I play so many 'eurogames' I didn't expect to enjoy this style of play and I really did. It's a good game, and I will definately play it again. It's worth picking up for an amusing gaming night. The game was pretty short (well compaired to those eurogames) so it may be good for a 'while waiting for'
Summary: Each player controlls a giant monster (Kong like Ape, 'zilla like Lizard, a floating eye, puple ooze monster, etc). and a faction of the military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines). The goal is to become the biggest monster of them all by winning the monster challenge. The challenge happens at a set time (after a certain number of hexes have been stomped) and up until then the players attempt to buff up thier monsters by destroying cities, visiting mutation sites and stomping infamy sites (things like Mount Rushmore, or Fort Knox). All this time the players use their military units to try to slow down the other monsters. Its a fairly simple hex based game, that plays quickly. The monsters can't fight each other until the end game, and the military units keep getting tougher as players earn 'military research cards'.
The good: the monsters are great, both what they included and the playing pieces (pre painted plastic). The componenets are all nice and the military units will look familiary to Axis and Allies and other AH game players. The fact that you play the good and the bad, both a monster and the military is really cool and leave open a ton of strategies. The game was really simple to learn but seems to have no one way to win or best strategy and it seems pretty open ended due to the size of the board, the number of monsters, and the possible monster/miliary combinations. The mutation and military research cards add to this variety as well. I doubt you would ever have two games got the same. The monster battle at the end was fun but maybe lopsided.
The bad: Many small bits that may be hard to replace if lost. You get just enough to play. I prefer when games come with a few extras of the small bits. The lack of variety between the military types was a bit disapointing, the main thing you see are tanks rocket launchers and planes, and only the army doesn't have planes. There is some variety in the stats of the units but not much. There is a lot of randomness in the battles. Pretty much everything in the game need a 4 or higher on a d6 to do damage, this means that 50% of the time you hit, 50% you miss. The dice played a big factor. Also when you smash a city you get a number of dice in hit points also uping the random factor. This will probably make the game more appealing to non-strategy game fans but I did find it higher then necessary.
The ugly: Steamrolling. We only played it once and I am not sure it would be like this every time, but it seems like once a player gets far enough ahead it is neigh impossible to stop them. Of course spotting this early meant that whoever was just a bit ahead got teamed up by military forces and beat down, so maybe it wasn't that bad. But it did seem like it could be a problem.
Overall: a fun game, better then I actually expected. Now that I play so many 'eurogames' I didn't expect to enjoy this style of play and I really did. It's a good game, and I will definately play it again. It's worth picking up for an amusing gaming night. The game was pretty short (well compaired to those eurogames) so it may be good for a 'while waiting for'