Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 7, 2012 21:38:00 GMT -5
*Arkham Horror*
Quickly: interesting but not really my kind of game.
Summary: co-op board game where players take on the roll of investigators wandering around Arkham collecting clues and useful items while portals to other relams open up around town and monsters start rampaging. Work together with the other players to close all the portals, place enough elder signs or defeat the big bad to win. Have too many portals, too many monsters or the Big bad kick your collective butts to lose.
Pretty simple gameplay based on drawing lots of cards and rolling dice pools where 5-6 are successes. First draw from the something horrible deck that usually means that a portal opens or monsters rampage. This puts clues on the board and puts some type of change to the game in effect (weather, cabs show up, horrible feelings etc). Do some upkeep stuff then move around the board. When moving fight monsters you find. After moving either use the spot you are on or draw a card for the spot you are on. The cards pretty much all have tests based on D6 dice pools. Character abilities and items help to pass these. Eventually decide you have enough info (in the form of clues) or are tough enough to go through the gates to 'other worlds' Experience funky stuff in the form of more cards. Try to close the gate when you get back a couple turns later. If you have the right amount of clues or stuff (elder signs for one) you can close a gate permanently. Repeat until you all win or loose.
The Good: really evocative of the theme. Probably one of the best games I've played to recreate the Lovecraft Mythos genre. The monsters and events in Arkham were perfectly creepy. The stuff that happens through the gates was just twisted and messed up. Simple enough to learn and much less daunting than it looks. A ridiculous amount of different cards means pretty much infinite re-playability. Top not looking game as expected from Fantasy Flight.
The Bad: For a co-op game it didn't really feel all that co-operative. Sure we were all striving to win but we were mostly doing our own thing in our own area going for our own gates and collecting our own clues. I don't know if the game has solo rules but it wouldn't surprise me. Sure there were a few things we did to help each other, like I had the ability to give someone a re-roll but that felt like something that could have been a random card effect more than a true feeling of team-work. I expected more of an RPG feel. I was playing with a group of gamers who are all pretty hardcore RPG fans. I expected more in character stuff. After about turn two the game turned pretty much all mechanical.
The Ugly: so much stuff to track. So many piles of cards, chits, tokens and do-dads all over the place. All these checks and balances to be done. How many portals are there, okay, how many monster tokens, okay did someone remember to move the doom track? It felt like it would be a better computer game than a board game just due to all the stuff that had to be watched and checked. Too random for my tastes. Due to the sheer size of all of the draw piles there was no way to predict what you would get. I prefer games where I know what's there to get and my odds of getting it. This lets me form a strategy. This was so random that everything was reactionary. Hey look I got a gun, I guess I can go fight stuff now. Hey now there's a huge portal right where I was planning to go, I guess I could go to the Abyss. Oh look at this I made $6 because I rolled a 5 on this die... so I guess I go shopping... and I get a bottle of whisky.
Overall: I was expecting something a bit more from this game. With how many friends and followers seem to love it, I just expected something better. It was good game, just not the best I've ever played. It did an awesome job of getting that Mythos feel but just didn't involve the investigative strategy and working together I expected. The random element made the game reactionary which to me took away from the feel I wanted from the game.
I know this game has a lot of fans, and I apologize if I don't love the game like you all do. Everyone has their own tastes and this one just didn't hit the right spot for me.
Quickly: interesting but not really my kind of game.
Summary: co-op board game where players take on the roll of investigators wandering around Arkham collecting clues and useful items while portals to other relams open up around town and monsters start rampaging. Work together with the other players to close all the portals, place enough elder signs or defeat the big bad to win. Have too many portals, too many monsters or the Big bad kick your collective butts to lose.
Pretty simple gameplay based on drawing lots of cards and rolling dice pools where 5-6 are successes. First draw from the something horrible deck that usually means that a portal opens or monsters rampage. This puts clues on the board and puts some type of change to the game in effect (weather, cabs show up, horrible feelings etc). Do some upkeep stuff then move around the board. When moving fight monsters you find. After moving either use the spot you are on or draw a card for the spot you are on. The cards pretty much all have tests based on D6 dice pools. Character abilities and items help to pass these. Eventually decide you have enough info (in the form of clues) or are tough enough to go through the gates to 'other worlds' Experience funky stuff in the form of more cards. Try to close the gate when you get back a couple turns later. If you have the right amount of clues or stuff (elder signs for one) you can close a gate permanently. Repeat until you all win or loose.
The Good: really evocative of the theme. Probably one of the best games I've played to recreate the Lovecraft Mythos genre. The monsters and events in Arkham were perfectly creepy. The stuff that happens through the gates was just twisted and messed up. Simple enough to learn and much less daunting than it looks. A ridiculous amount of different cards means pretty much infinite re-playability. Top not looking game as expected from Fantasy Flight.
The Bad: For a co-op game it didn't really feel all that co-operative. Sure we were all striving to win but we were mostly doing our own thing in our own area going for our own gates and collecting our own clues. I don't know if the game has solo rules but it wouldn't surprise me. Sure there were a few things we did to help each other, like I had the ability to give someone a re-roll but that felt like something that could have been a random card effect more than a true feeling of team-work. I expected more of an RPG feel. I was playing with a group of gamers who are all pretty hardcore RPG fans. I expected more in character stuff. After about turn two the game turned pretty much all mechanical.
The Ugly: so much stuff to track. So many piles of cards, chits, tokens and do-dads all over the place. All these checks and balances to be done. How many portals are there, okay, how many monster tokens, okay did someone remember to move the doom track? It felt like it would be a better computer game than a board game just due to all the stuff that had to be watched and checked. Too random for my tastes. Due to the sheer size of all of the draw piles there was no way to predict what you would get. I prefer games where I know what's there to get and my odds of getting it. This lets me form a strategy. This was so random that everything was reactionary. Hey look I got a gun, I guess I can go fight stuff now. Hey now there's a huge portal right where I was planning to go, I guess I could go to the Abyss. Oh look at this I made $6 because I rolled a 5 on this die... so I guess I go shopping... and I get a bottle of whisky.
Overall: I was expecting something a bit more from this game. With how many friends and followers seem to love it, I just expected something better. It was good game, just not the best I've ever played. It did an awesome job of getting that Mythos feel but just didn't involve the investigative strategy and working together I expected. The random element made the game reactionary which to me took away from the feel I wanted from the game.
I know this game has a lot of fans, and I apologize if I don't love the game like you all do. Everyone has their own tastes and this one just didn't hit the right spot for me.