fattom23

Arkham Horror is a cooperative board game from Fantasy Flight Games for 1-7 players. The game is based partially on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but more based upon Chaosium's classic tabletop roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu, which is a mixture of Lovecraft's evocative horror stories with 1930s pulp action. The game was originally published by Chaosium on 1987, and was republished with substantially revised rules by Fantasy Flight in 2005, then mercilessly expanded throughout the next several years (6 at last count, with another due in Spring 2010). I have only played the 2005 version, and don't expect to ever have the opportunity to experience the original, as it has long been a highly sought-after collector's item. Thus, this review is based solely on the new version.

Arkham Horror has the players play as investigators attempting to stop a Great Old One from taking over the fictional city of Arkham, Massachusetts. The investigators portrayed by the players and the GOO to be faced are chosen randomly at the beginning of the game, allowing for a wide variety of different basic game types.

The basic play in Arkham Horror is based around moving between the different locations on the Arkham game board, having encounters (determined primarily by drawing a card from one of the many decks of cards included with the game), encountering monsters (represented by cardboard counters included in the game box), and attempting to close gates to other dimensions, which are popping up all over Arkham. These encounters will sometimes end with the investigator receiving some item of value, all represented by cards: it could be a new ally, a spell learned, a shotgun found, or even an upgrade to his or her basic skills. More often, however, the encounters will end with the character being driven slightly more insane or being more injured. Gates will randomly open each turn, based on the dictates of a deck called the "Mythos Deck", which describes where Gates open, Clues are found, and Monsters move. To top it off, the Mythos deck generally describes a BAD THING that happens to the investigators (as you may have noticed, a lot of bad things happen to AH investigators).

The goal of the game is to close a number of gates based on the number of players, and have no gates open at the time this is done. I suppose it is possible to win in this way, but I will confess that I've never done it. More often, enough gates will open that the Great Old One will receive enough Doom tokens on his card to awaken (each GOO has a specific number of tokens that he requires to awaken). If the GOO awakens, the investigators will have to fight him (or die trying; the GOOs are all ridiculously difficult to defeat). If the investigators defeat the GOO, they win. If they lose, they are driven stark gibbering mad and the world is toast.

There's a LOT more to it, but this is a review, not a complete set of game rules. Suffice to say that AH is an extremely complicated and widgety game, with a lot of bits of throwaway color. The game allows you to do things like become the sheriff of Arkham, join the Silver Twilight lodge, and dissect the creatures that you've defeated. Most of these don't have a ton of bearing on the actual game, but they're fun for big fans of Lovecraft. And make no mistake: this game is strictly for fans of Lovecraft (a group I count myself a part of).

Arkham Horror is about theme and story first, last and always. Viewed strictly as a game, it is pretty easy to be disappointed in Arkham Horror: the rulebook is organized poorly, there are many rules that seem mostly arbitrary, it's very difficult in your first few games to even figure out what you should be doing at any given time.

For players who are interested in Lovecraftian atmosphere (at least of the CoC stripe), AH really shines. The game features a wildly varying tension level, which adds to the drama. It's a fairly common occurrence to feel like the game is really in-hand, almost too easy, only to have the very next turn bring the epic pwnage to the players. Whatever interest you have as regards Mr. HP, Arkham Horror will let you fulfill it.

I suppose that the fundamental problem with Arkham as a game (rather than a Lovecraft simulator) is that it takes a long time to play, and offers an extremely variable game experience. This makes it hard to get a grip on if your intent is to win. We've played it four or five times, and it's never taken less than 3 hours. The different GOOs, invesigators and Mythos cards have made each experience completely different, such that none of us have ever been confident about what we should be doing at any given time. Instead, we just run around and explore what the game has to offer, which irritates the crap out of anyone in the group who approaches it as more of a game, with a goal and set of inviolable rules.

But, for those who can get into it, AH is a great, fiddly experience in Lovecraftian terror. Playing against the game instills a sense of terror in the players far beyond what would occur if they were playing against each other. The game being stacked in favor of the players losing adds a wonderful tension, especially once the gates and monsters start getting out of easy control. It's at these times that the game is at its best, making it highly recommended to Lovecraft and horror fans.

Who Will Love It: Fans of Lovecraft, Roleplayers, Fantasy Flight Fanatics

Who Will Loath It: Those Looking for a Controlled, Competitive Game; Eurogamers; People Who Just Want to Win

The game is afoot! Elementary , my dear Watson! Everyone loves Sherlock Holmes, and 221B Baker Street sets out to allow players to step into the shoes of the great deductive master. The game, based around word puzzles and deduction, was originally released in 1975. It is designed for 2-6 players and takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to play.

Setup is fast and simple. All players are given one Scotland Yard card and one Skeleton Key card and placing their playing piece at the 221B Baker Street location on the gameboard. One player then selects the case to be played, and reads the case file out loud to the other players.

The gameplay is basic roll the die and move, with the goal being to visit the various locations on the gameboard to collect clues to solve the case. The clues take two basic forms: a general piece of information about the case and suspects, or a word puzzle which spells out one aspect of the case. For example, the puzzle, if correctly solved, may reveal the name of a murderer or a motive. When you are confident that you have solved all the aspects of the case that need to be solved, you return to 221B Baker Street and announce your solution. If you are correct, you win the game. If not, you are eliminated, and everyone else in the game knows which solution is NOT correct.

The Scotland Yard cards are used to lock locations during play. When you find a location that gives you a particularly helpful clue, you can use your Scotland Yard card to lock it and slow other players down from getting that same clue. However, a locked location can be unlocked using a Skeleton Key card, and both cards are discarded.

The game, overall, is a fairly fun, casual game that is easy to introduce to new players. Component design is simple, but effective. The board is attractive, with a scratchy, Victorian style that accomplishes the goal of getting you into the mood of the game. The pieces are shaped like candle sticks, which aids the immersion factor, and come in a variety of easily distinguishable colors, so there's never confusion about which color you are playing.

It's a good thing that the game is effective at immersing you in its setting, because the gameplay has a number of very serious issues. The rulebook claims that going to locations that are mentioned on the case card are more likely to yield useful clues, but this really doesn't seem to be the case. Some clues are extremely useful, and others are merely bits of information or trivia, of little use to solving the case. The game tends to be won by the player who finds the most useful clues first, and there's no real way to tell with any certainty which clues are going to be useful. Another major issue is the imprecision of the solutions in the game. There is no real way to tell for certain how specific a player needs to be. The game reports will provide more details about this issue.

Although this is easily fixed by house rules, the Scotland Yard cards are fairly useless. Since everyone starts with a Skeleton Key card, locking locations rarely causes any type of inconvenience for the other players. In addition, the game is short enough that locations are locked too rarely to seriously slow down the game. However, the biggest issue is with the die rolling. A string of bad rolls can put a player out of serious contention from the very beginning. However, there are a series of house rules in various places on the internet to mitigate the role of luck in the game.

Overall, 221B Baker Street is a decent game for very casual gamers who are looking for a mystery story more than a serious deductive exercise. The extreme randomness of the clue distribution, as well as the potential for rolling only one six-sided die for movement, makes it unsuitable for really competitive players. However, it's a decent enough way to pass the time on those quiet evenings when you don't want to work too hard at having fun.

Who it's recommended for: Fans of Sherlock Holmes, Casual Gamers Who Won't Be Put Off By the Randomness, Detective Fans Who Have Played Just Too Much Clue

Who Will Be Irritated By It: Those Who Don't Want the Dice to Control Their Fate, Players Who Want a Serious, Competitive Game

I've decided to get two entries for the price of one, and post the game reports separately on Friday. This will likely become the regular schedule, as the entries will just be too long to read if I include the review and the game report in one. I hope this isn't a problem for anyone, but it will allow for deeper more intricate game reports than would otherwise be possible.

Here is the complete list of games that we will be playing during the course of this project.  Remember, the rules state that we must play every game we own that came in a package complete enough to play from it.  Several CCGs came in starter sets that we're unable to reproduce for various reasons.  Thus, the only true CCG on the list is V: TES, since I never broke its starter set down to its component parts.  We have to have at least one game at a time going for four straight hours, so Tic Tac Toe ought to be fun.  Hope you're looking forward to this as much as we are!

1. 221B Baker Street
2. Arkham Horror (Fantasy Flight 2005)
3. Axis & Allies
4. Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (Mongoose Publishing 2004)
5. Backgammon
6. Balderdash (Canada Games 1984)
7. BattleBall
8. BattleMasters
9. Battleship
10. Battlestar Galactica
11. Battletech (Catalyst 2007)
12. Bitin' Off Headz
13. Blue Moon
14. Brittania
15. Brood War (Starcraft Expansion)
16. Burning Crusade (World of Warcraft Expansion)
17. Bushwackin' Varmints out of Sergio's Butte
18. Captain Parks' Imaginary Polar Expedition (Cheapass Games 2006?)
19. Car Wars
20. Castle Risk
21. Change
22. Checkers
23. Chess
24. Chinese Checkers
25. Church of the Sub-Genious (I:NWO Expansion)
26. Chief Herman's Next Big Thing
27. Cities and Knights of Catan (Settlers of Catan Expansion)
28. Clever Endeavor (1989)
29. Clue
30. Colossal Arena
31. Connect 4
32. Cosmic Encounter (Mayfair 1991)
33. Crack the Case
34. Devil Bunny Hates the Earth
35. Devil Bunny Needs a Ham
36. Diplomacy (Avalon Hill 2000)
37. Dungeoneer
38. Dungeons and Dragons
39. Duo
40. Flux
41. Fury of Dracula (Fantasy Flight 2006)
42. Gangs of Mega-City One (Mongoose)
43. Get Out
44. Give Me the Brain
45. Go
46. Great Brain Robbery, The
47. Guillotine
48. Hero Quest
49. Illuminati: New World Order
50. Instinct
51. Jurassic Park
52. Key to the Kingdom
53. King in Yellow, The (Arkham Horror Expansion) (Fantasy Flight 2006)
54. Lionheart
55. Lord of the Rings (Fantasy Flight 2000)
56. Lord of the Rings Risk
57. Lord of the Rings: The Search (Fantasy Flight)
58. Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit
59. Lost
60. Lunch Money
61. Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing
62. Monopoly
63. Mutant Chronicles Miniatures Game
64. Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel
65. Mutiny!
66. Othello (Pressman)
67. Outburst
68. Parchesi
69. Pass the Pigs
70. Payday
71. Pegasus (Battlestar Galactica Expansion)
72. Pig Pile
73. Pirates of the Caribbean Game of Life
74. Pit
75. Risk
76. Robo-Rally
77. Safari Jack
78. Samurai Swords
79. Scene It!
80. Seafarers of Catan (Settlers of Catan Expansion)
81. Secret Tijuana Deathmatch
82. Settlers of Catan
83. Sopranos Trivia Game, The
84. Sorry!
85. Spree
86. Starcraft
87. Star Wars Episode I Card Game
88. Star Wars Trivial Pursuit
89. Stratego
90. Thunder Road
91. Tic Tac Toe
92. Tile Chess
93. Twister
94. Twixt
95. Unexploded Cow
96. Uno
97. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (Starter Set)
98. Warcraft
99. World of Warcraft
100. Would You Rather? Card Game
101. Zombies!

My brother and I have been huge gaming fans for most of our lives.  Like most kids, we started off with Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and Cooties (never did learn how to actually PLAY Cooties, just liked to play with the little bugs).  We progressed to some all-time classic games, like Hero Quest and Mousetrap, and some not-so-classic, like Hook and The Ren and Stimpy Log Game.  We lived out in the country, so we didn't have much to do with other kids and played a ton of games with each other.
Like anyone who's been a gamer for any considerable length of time, we have acquired a lot of games.  We've played many of them only once, some a great number of times, and some never at all.  While helping my brother move from one apartment to another, I had a moment of inspiration.  We would start a regular meeting of our gaming group with the express purpose of giving all of these games a spin.  We would meet weekly, come hell or high water, and play one game per week until all had been played at least once.
Some ground rules for the project:
1. The project is limited to non-collectible games that my brother and I currently own between us.  No game purchases will be allowed, and no Collectible Card Games will be played.  Miniatures games will be played, IF the game was originally boxed and contained enough material in the box to legitimately play the game.
2.  The games will be played in alphabetical order, with numbers preceding letters.  Games with a property title (such as our multitude of Lord of the Rings games) will all be alphabetized by the property title, then subtitle.  Therefore, the game, for our purposes, is known as Lord of the Rings Risk, NOT Risk: Lord of the Rings.
3. Games with identical mechanics will only be played once, regardless of the number of versions we own.  We will not be playing all of the variant versions of Monopoly, only one of them. (Unfortunately, this means that we will only play one copy of Risk, not all six that we collectively own).
4. Games with named expansions, such as Arkham Horror, will be played multiple times.  When the name of the base game is up, we will play only the base game.  When the name of the expansion comes up, we will play the base game with only the expansion.
5. We will play each game as many times as possible during a single four-hour session.  This, of course, will mean that we will play Guillotine far more times than World of Warcraft Board Game.  Deal with it.
6. Booze will, of course, be involved.  Unless we're talking about Joe on Robo-Rally Night.  When he's been drinking, he can't tell his left from his right.  For those who've played Robo-Rally, you know that this can be a serious problem.
7.  I will be blogging each and every meeting.  I will try to post a summary of the game, profiles of our players, some memorable moments from the evening, our brutally honest assessment of the game, and whether not it's worth the closet space it takes up.
Together, we have approximately 100 qualifying games, so this should be about a 2 year project.  We're going to take a week off for Dragon*Con, but otherwise are going to try to execute this plan faithfully.  Tomorrow night, I'll be posting the list.  First up, though, will be a little-played gem called 221B Baker Street.