VEGAS BABY!!!!

Here's a game that when I saw it on Tabletop I knew it was going to be a game that I wanted for my own collection. Let me say, I am not at all disapointed with this title.

Lords of Vegas is an adult version of Monopoly with a lot more money being thrown around; you build casinos, place bets at other player's casinos, expand your casinos, try to take over other casinos, and so on.

 

It is a game for 2 to 4 players (plus there is an expansion to add 2 more players - and in my opinion the expansion is only good for that - I will get to that a little later on) and can be played in just over an hour. There is a lot going on during the game but it is a real fun game to play with a group of people.

Everyone starts out with 2 casino cards and they collect the amount of money that is illustrated on the cards from the bank; this is the starting money for that player. The players place their respective colour tokens on the board and these are known as parking lots for future contstruction. Once this is complete, the cards are discarded for the game the rest of the cards are shuffled into a game deck and the final 'Pay the Strip' card is randomly inserted in the bottom part of the deck and shuffled and placed under the game deck.


Each player's turn consists of taking one of five (6 with the expansion) actions; some can be done multiple times, whilst others can only be done once:
1- Build: This can be done as long as you can afford it and trust me money runs out fast in this game. To build you select one of your parking lots and pay the amount required then you select a color building and place it on the empty space. You will notice that on the board there are pictures of dice on the lots, and with certain pips showing, you place one of your coloured dice in the center of the new building and you are now the casino boss (for now).

2- Sprawl: This is a risky move but could pay off in the end; you purchase a completely empty space next to one of your Casinos and pay DOUBLE the amount. Place a building of the same colour as the casino you already own and place the die with the correct number of pips showing. The risky part is that if later in the game another player draws the lot you sprawled to, he takes over without paying anything (places one his or her die inside the building). You can do this action as many times as you wish.

3- Gamble: Yep you got it, simple, you choose a player who owns at least one Casino (is the boss) and gamble up to 5million dollars per building lot in that Casino. However, if the player who owns the Casino only has 2 million dollars, you can only bid that much (if you double your winnings, the bank will pay the difference that the player cannot pay from his own money). You may only gamble once per turn.

4- Remodel: If you are the boss of the Casino, you can change the color of your entire Casino for 5 million dollars per lot. If I am not mistaken you can only do this once per turn.

5- Reorganize: Here is where the fun is... when you and another player have a joint Casino, you can pay 1 million dollars per pip showing on the dice of all players and get everyone to re-roll their dice and you re-roll your dice. Whoever has the highest dice roll (individual die), becomes the new BOSS (be careful, you could lose your advantage or lose possible future earnings). This can be done once per casino.

6- Build-up (expansion): In my opinion this is the most useless part of the expansion and the most expensive to do... if you want, for 15 million dollars, you can add a floor to your casino. All this does is give you more points when a colour card that matches your Casino is drawn. That is all. Worthless in my opinion (for the price).

So how do you get more money and points? Simple, you can win at gambling or get paid by another player for losing at gambling. However, the main way to gain these is every turn: When a player flips a new casino card, there is a colour on it, match this to any casinos on the board and pay every player the amount of pips on ALL of their dice. Now if you are the boss of the casino, you also receive points for the number of buildings in that casino. If a pay the strip card shows up, you do the same as above but for ALL casino's touching the center of the board (the strip) and in the same manner as points and money.

All in all, this is a really good game and I really enjoy it. I find the replay value to be very high since you have no idea what lots you will start with, nor how much money you will start with, the cards are always mixed up and the end game card is randomly inserted in the bottom quarter of the deck.

Excellent game and I truly recommend this one.

5 out of 5 dice.

Old school comes to the table...

RAMPAGE!

 

 



I am sure there are people reading this that were just as in awe as I was when I first saw this in my local game shoppe. Well that AWE did not last long with me (sorry to say). The game itself is not bad, but it lacks replay value big time and I find it is really aimed at smaller kids (so more of a family game, which is fine).

I was able to test this product and give a demo of it at my local store and not having to buy it was a plus.

When I got home, I noticed there were BONUS stickers with the game; these were for all the little meeples the game comes with - front and back stickers. You don't have to put them on, but it is nice to see the different characters (cheerleaders, army guys, etc.)

 

It took me about 1.5 hours to get all those little stickers on there and now a few months later they are starting to peel off or rip, etc. but it was nice while it lasted.

 

There are also stickers for the monsters and for the pods they stand on.

 

To setup the actual board, you have to actually stick certain bases (building bases) to the actual board and the board itself comes in 2 pieces which you have to join together by a center piece that is also the main base for the stadium.

 

Here is the overview of what you get in the box:

So gameplay is rather simple; you first setup the entire board game (as shown below) and you choose your monster according to colour and then you also choose the matching pod and monster screen and then 4 teeth (I will explain what these do after).

You place your monster on the pod in one of the four corners of the board. Then each player has a choice to do 2 of 4 possible actions: move, attack, blow or throw. Then you get to eat a meeple in your zone for each tooth you still have.



 

Here is a short description of each possible action:

 

1- Move: Remove your monster from the pod and use your fingers to flick the pod then place your monster back on the pod (be careful, if you flick too hard, you might fly off the board and you lose a tooth).

 

2- Attack: If you moved your pod close enough to a building (touching at least the sidewalk surrounding the building) you take your monster, stretch your arm over the building and drop your monster - any meeples that fall off stay where they land; any building levels that are completely free of debris are collected behind your monster screen and if by chance you made another monster fall over, they lose a tooth and you collect it behind your screen.

 

3- Blow: This action is quite interesting and funny at the same time. You place your chin on the top of your monster and take a deep breath and blow as hard as you can on whatever you want. Once again, any meeples that fall off stay where they land; any building levels that are completely free of debris are collected behind your monster screen and if by chance you made another monster fall over, they lose a tooth and you collect it behind your screen.

 

4- Throw: This action is fun, if there is a vehicle in your zone, you may take the vehicle place it on the head of your monster and flick it towards something and same as above with the meeples, floors and other monsters.

 

Once you have completed 2 of these 4 actions (you can also do 1 action twice), you get to EAT meeples that are in your zone (ZONES are identified with colours and borders - there is a park zone, a marina zone, street zone, etc.); however, you cannot eat a meeple that is touching a sidewalk or on debris and you cannot eat more than the number of teeth you have.

 

So you do this until there are no more floors left to clear. The game ends and you score your points (and if I am not mistaken, certain meeples are worth more and so on).

 

As you can see, it is a really simple game (maybe a bit too simple) and a tad pricey for what you get but it will keep your little ones entertained for a couple of hours possibly - just make sure to keep an eye on those flying meeples.

 

As a gamer I give this 2 dice out of 5, but as a family man, I would give it a 4 dice out of 5.



Family Games

Here's a nice family game that is simple to understand but you have to be quick to select the right item: Ghost Blitz

The back story is that a ghost took some pictures but they either came out wrong or actually right. When you draw a card, you look at the colors, the items and if something is right, then you pick that item, if nothing is right, then you pick what is missing from the picture. But you have to make sure you select the correct answer (whether right or wrong) and if you don't select the correct item, then you must give one of your cards (which you won by choosing correctly before) to the person who did choose correctly.

The game goes on like this until there are no more cards to draw and the winner is the person with the most cards. This game has 2 sets; Ghost Blitz and Ghost Blitz 2.

3.5 dice out of 5

CardLine and TimeLine are very similar family games; CardLine is more for kids and Timeline is more for players ages 13 and up. However, the premise of the game is all the same; start with one card on the table with either a size, age or weight (for CardLine) or a year (for Timeline) face up and each player is given a certain number of cards with this information face down and must guess if the card they hold goes before or after the one on the table (or between 2 cards on the table).

Here is an example for CardLine: On the table you have a Wolf and you decide that you are going to use the weight category for the game; the first player looks at their cards and chooses a giraffe, is that giraffe heavier or lighter than a wolf. If the person guesses right, then the card is placed on the table at the appropriate spot, if not, then the player discards that card and chooses a new card. The player with no cards left, wins the game. Now the second player will have 2 cards

on the table and must choose to place one of their cards either between the 2 cards, after the 2 cards or before the 2 cards... and this goes on until someone wins.

As for TimeLine: Same concept except that you need to know your history or be very lucky... these cards are usually inventions or things that were discovered, or books that were written, etc. and so you start with one card on the table with the year face up and then each player plays their cards in the same fashion as CardLine; before, after or between other cards. Again, first person to get rid of all their cards, wins.

Both of these games come in a nice tin canister and (you may not notice it in the pictures - also sorry for the quality - it was late when I took them) the cards are placed inside a nice felt holder. The cards in CardLine are bigger in size which helps when small kids are playing and the cards in TimeLine are quite small but you get more cards. There are many versions of both CardLine and Timeline and can all be mixed in to one major deck for more players. I believe the suggested number of players is 2 to 6 but I think you could be more if you put all the sets together and have a one heck of a 'TIME'. The price is nice on these as well so not a budget breaker if you are looking to break into small card games.

These games get a nice 4.5 dice out of 5.

 

Here is one of the many dice game out there that allow you to play a quick game with your family and introduce younger players to turn-based games. Dino Hunt DICE comes with 10 beautifully coloured dice that depict either a leaf, a dino print or a dinosaur. The point of this game is to get to 20 points before the others do. How do you do this? Simple, place all the dice in the cup (which is nicely illustrated) and take out 3 random dice, roll them and if you get dinosaurs, you want to keep them; if you get leaves, you take those dice and take out more dice from the cup (to a total of 3 in your hand) and roll again; if you get a dino print, they remain on the table until you get three and you lose your turn and any dinosaur you tried to score is lost. So you might want to stop rolling when you have 2 prints. You just keep rolling until you score your dinosaurs or get 3 dino prints.

 

This is a great game for small kids because the game play is quick and could be over in 10 minutes and then you start over again. Similar games to this would be Zombie Dice and Chupacabra but the themes of these two dice games are more mature in nature and aim at the older crowds (but I play them with my little guys and just explain them the rules in a cute way). They retail for 11$ to 22$ because they come with more and more dice (10 in Dino Hunt, 13 in Zombie Dice and 24 dice in Chupacabra).

 

All of these dice games get the max; 5 out of 5 dice. 

 

Who doesn't know the story of The Three Little Pigs? Well this game puts a small twist on the original tale.

 

In the box you get a bunch of house piece tiles (some wood, some straw and some brick) separated into roofs, doors and windows. You also get 5 dice that you get to roll a total of 3 times and then from there you decide what you want to build.



Here is a turn example: First place all the doors, windows and roofs into piles sorted by their type (straw, wood or brick), then the first player rolls the 5 dice and keeps the dice they want to use to build a piece of their house; if they get 2 doors and 1 window and 1 roof and 1 wolf, the wolf is set aside and the die cannot be re-rolled (if you get 2 wolves you spin the wolf wheel - will get to that later), they can keep whatever materials they want or re-roll any of the 4 dice that are not wolves.

Once the player has rolled three times, then the player can take a tile equal to the number of dice it shows; if you have 3 doors and 1 window, then the player can take a wood door and a straw window (you need at least 1 die to take any straw materials, 2 dice for wood and 3 dice for brick). Now that player places the two tiles so that the door is on the bottom and the window above that door - there are many ways of placing these materials - they do not have to be the same material at all but you must follow these rules: Your house must also start with either a door or a window on the bottom and a roof on the top. You can place more windows beneath other windows if there is no door under it, or you can place more windows above other windows. You cannot place 2 doors above or below each other and you cannot place any tiles on that house once you place a roof.

If you choose to build a house with all the same type (ie straw), there is an end-game bonus that goes to the player who has houses built with the same types for all levels of material. Also there are other rewards for the player with the highest built (completed) house - includes a door, at least one window and a roof - and so on.

Now I mentioned the wolf dice, well if you get 2 or more of these dice during your rolls (you must stop if you get to 2 but you could roll 3 on the first shot), you have select another player with tiles in front of them and select one of their houses to blow on. Then you spin the wolf spinner, and you remove any tiles from that house that match the type that is on the spinner (ie wood, straw or brick).

Very simple game and kids will love this. The price is a tad high for what you get but still lots of fun.

4 out of 5 dice

If you love poker and Yahtzee, well here is a game for you that combines both: Roll'n Bump.
The title says it all, you roll dice and you bump your opponent's dice.

What you get in the box: you get 26 dice (5 of 5 different colours - however some of the colors are really close and hard to tell apart - and 1 special die) and 49 coloured cards (including one special multicoloured card).

Setting up your first game is easy, you place the 15-point multicoloured card in the middle of the table and then, depending on the number of players - for this example, let's say 4, you place 6 piles of 8 cards around the middle card, flip the top card of each pile face up and give 5 dice of the same colour to each player and place the special white die in view of all players.

How to play: You get three rolls of your dice (which seems to be the case will most dice games) and when looking at the cards in play you may want to try and roll for a small straight of 3 dice, a medium straight of 4 dice or a long straight of 5 dice; or you might want 2 of a kind, 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind or go big and try and grad the middle card for 5 of a kind; or you might roll nothing good this turn and try and take the single die cards (a 4 or a 2, etc.). The goal is to have the highest rolled dice on any of these cards - whether you are trying for a small 3 dice straight, you will want a 4,5,6 so no one can bump you, or if you are trying for the 3 of a kind, you will want three 6's so no one can bump you; or once again you might want to place more than 4 on the single 4 card because there are no cards with 2 of a kind or more at the moment on the table. (I may add a quick video showing a single turn just to explain this a bit more).

Once you have placed your dice, then the other players play their turns trying to outscore your dice and bumping you off the ones you took. Each card has a point value and there are also 4 colours of cards that if you have more of one colour that end of the game you get more points.

This game was a hit at family parties and I recommend it for all ages; 5 out of 5 dice

All of these games are available at Multizone 

Foolish enough to enter the Gauntlet?

If you are ready for a crazy game that tries to take the RPG style of gaming to a new level, then Gauntlet of Fools is the game for you.

In this card/dice game, 2-6 players can choose from many different characters that randomly dealt out along with many different ability cards that are dealth alongside the characters.






Each player will choose a character while other players will try and boast their way to take that character for the other player; but beware, boasting comes with a price; you can take that monk with the flaming sword but will you do it blindfolded while getting over a hangover? However, these boasts will make you lose dice or life points right from the beginning of the game so be careful what you boast about. The whole point of boasting is not only to get the character with the great ability, but to pretend like nothing can stop you in this gautlet of baddies you are about to face.

The gameplay is simple, once you all have your characters and abilities and so on, you enter the gauntlet searching for many foes. These foes come from a deck of creatures, events and so on; and once a card is played from this deck, all players must face the card as if they were alone in this game (this is not a cooperative game at all); so even if you defeat the card by out-matching it's defense, the other players must do the same. Now, when that creature attacks, it also attacks everyone and you have to be able to defend the attack, otherwise you get wounded and after just 4 wounds, you are DEAD.

However, when you "kill" a creature, you get the gold or sometimes a bonus that is described on the card itself and the player with the most gold at the end of the game wins, so you could die first but be the richest of the bunch.

First off, you see what you are going to encounter (could be a monster, a modifier card - which will possibly affect the next card if it is a monster - or an event card that also affects all players - could be in the form of all getting a wound or all getting gold -).

Then, you attack the creature; you do this rolling dice (equal to what your character's ability card shows) and if you roll greater than or equal to the defense of the creature, you kill it and gain it's treasure, but then you still have to defend against the creature's attack (which to me if you killed it, it should not attack you - I think this is a small flaw in the rules; I would personally change this rule to make it more fun that if you kill the monster it does not attack you, thus making the game last a little longer) and if you fail, you get a wound and if you get 4 wounds you are dead, but you don't lose your gold (on a side note, you do not die right off the bat once you get that 4th wound; if you can heal once the fight is complete, you may remove that 4th wound and continue, if not, then you are dead.)

So this goes on and on until all players are dead and then you count up the gold per player and determine a winner.

My two cents on this game is that I love it but I would rather not use the boasting and just play the simple game and like I mentioned before, change that rule of defense once the creature is dead, it's dead and cannot attack YOU; it can go ahead and attack others unless they also killed the monster.

Because of the simplicity of this game and because it has great replay value it will get a 4 dice out of 5.

Game available at Multizone

A zombie game I actually like. It's ZOMBICIDE

 

I have never been a fan of Zombie movies, shows, games, etc. until I played this game (oh and the Zombie Fluxx, but that is a no-brainer game that just made it's way into my collection). I saw a demo of this game being played at my local comic book shop and thought it was a bit complicated. However, when I saw the popularity of the game and saw that my store finally got a season 1 box in stock, I told myself, I am going to try this and probably like it... also considering I got it on sale helped the budget a bit.

 

Before I get into the actual game play and review, I just want to mention the amount of expansions and so on you can get in this series: The original box comes with a load of stuff; zombies, survivors, equipment cards, zombie cards, noise markers, door tiles, objective tiles, police and pimp cars, game tiles and more. It also includes a rule book that has 10 different scenarios for you and your friends to try and complete and they are not easy scenarios that is for sure. But of course, if you are a real gamer, this box just won't cut it for you; you will need the Toxic City Mall expansion that has toxic zombies and new game times and zombie cards and new survivors to have even more people playing and even cooler, Zombivors (zombie survivors - yes you can keep playing with your character as a zombie with new abilities and such). Then of course you need more zombies because there just isn't enough already so you get the walking dead 1 and 2 expansions and then the angry zombies and then the toxic crowd expansion and why not the dog zombies and dog companions and finally the Second Season of Zombicide; Prison Outbreak... oh but of course you will need more game tiles so you will want the 3 expansion tile packs that add on to any base set (Season 1 or 2). You better make room in your game cabinet because this is going to take up a lot of room, or simply put all of this in just the base set box and you should have enough room.

 

My fun was playing with my younger boys (yes it says 13+ but they like moving figurines around and destroying zombies too) and taking whichever tiles I wanted and created my own scenario which we almost defeated. This is the main reason this game is so great, because it has amazing replay value (unlike Zombies where you need to buy every expansion and the only thing you do is walk around until you find the helipad and more zombies spawn and you have find health and ammo... almost like the Escape game but less fun) you can constantly change the scenario and with the random zombie cards that spawn new zombies every turn, you never know what is going to happen.

 

This game is really cooperative though, but even if you play alone, you need to use all 6 suvivors (or 10 I guess with the toxic city mall expansion... i should read those rules before assuming anything here) to get through the scenario(s).

 

Here is how it works: to setup the game, you either choose an already designed scenario from one of the many rule books, go online and download some free ones found here (missions) or create your own. Then you simply lay out the tiles and so on as described and start the game.

 

Each player chooses a survivor (1 survivor per player unless you are less players, then you divide the survivors equally - but read the scenario because some start with only 4 survivors) and receives one random equipment card (1 of 6 possible cards - 3 frying pans, a pistol, a fire axe and a crowbar).

Then a first player is chosen and given the first player marker and activates their survivor; each survivor has 3 possible actions (which you can choose from a list of actions - I am not going into this detail) and after that is done, the next player activates their survivor(s) and so on until all survivors have finished their actions.

 

Then, it's the zombie's turn... they attack any survivors in the same zone as them, they move and they spawn at certain locations.

 

And this continues until the objective(s) of the scenario is(are) completed.



The illustrations and details of the game pieces is amazing... the only downer I saw was with one of the survivor minis that is like a darker grey, almost the same as the Zombie minis... they could have used a better color in my opinion. The rules are quite easy to understand once you play a couple of times and having more players just makes the game so much more interesting (you really have to work together because at the start of the game, 2 survivors can open doors and only 2 have guns - stay close to these guys).

The entire game is fun and I simply can't say more than this so 5 out of 5 dice (or zombies) for this game and go buy it as a late Christmas gift if you can still find copies out there.

Provided by Multizone