Vegas Showdown

Most of the time when I review a game, it’s after one or two plays and it’s really more of an off-the-cuff first impression. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since I play a lot of games and if I really waited to review a game until after the 9th or 10th play I’d get even less done than I do now. This is why it’s nice to review a game like Vegas Showdown, a game I’ve played a lot and feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on.

Vegas Showdown is part puzzle game, part resource management exercise, and part auction game. Obviously it’s a Las Vegas themed game, as you take the role of a casino manager building the best place on the strip. You start with a blank grid, some money, and some people, and go from there. You add restaurants, games, lounges, and other attractions until the endgame conditions are met and a winner is declared. The winner is determined by a combination of casino design, accumulated fame, and money.

All this sounds very clinical, but there are plenty of random elements that keep the game interesting. There are events that can affect how much money you get in a round, what attractions you can and can’t buy, and other wacky effects. This can affect your overall strategy pretty quickly. The game is a lot of fun when you get on a roll, but it’s important to try and stay generalized and take a wider approach to your victory. The game has some mechanics to push you to generalize, but finding the right balance is tough. Often the winning player doesn’t have the highest income or the most employees, but has enough to do the things that they need to do to win.


Vegas Showdown is a lot of fun, but even with all the random elements, it’s not as replayable as Twilight Imperium or Agricola, but it’s still interesting and makes for a good time. Its best played once in a while to stay fresh, but often enough so that you can try out new plans to make your place the best. It’s good enough to even forgive the rather minimalist art and board design. Overall, is a very solid game that should be hitting the game table with some regularity. 7/10.

Tribune

Some games are needlessly complex. Either they have a lot of mechanics going on at the same time, or a single overly drawn-out idea that ends up just being grinding and tedious. Arkham Horror is one of the needlessly complex games, with so much going on that forgets that the point is to try and have fun playing the game. Mystery of the Abbey is a deduction game that is convoluted to the point of silliness.

Tribune gets close to this level of pointlessness. When you get right down to it Tribune is a card game with a lot of extra bits, and I was so ready to hate this game when I realized that. It was like I was about to get ripped off, or hustled by the game's gorgeous art and seemingly weighty theme.

I'm happy to say that I was wrong, and Tribune manages to overcome it's overwroughtness and actually deliver an interesting and fun gaming session. Even though Tribune is a card game, it manages to deliver some rich game play and even manages to juggle a couple of different mechanics when aquiring cards and performing other options. The game's theme doesn't feel forced into the actual gameplay, as the different locations and their associated mechanics make sense in a historical sense, even if only a little bit.

Tribune is a good game. The play is a little awkward at first, but once a couple of rounds are played, it comes pretty easy. I look forward to playing again, and not getting my ass handed to me quite as severely next time. 6/10.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Roads & Boats

Some games regard themselves as rather epic. From the giant boxes of Twilight Imperium the thousands of pieces in Heroscape, some games are huge spectacles of gaming grandness, and they are well aware of that. Roads & Boats isn't that self-aware, despite being a rather epic game itself. It's difficult to describe, but Roads & Boats has a down-to-earth mentality that pervades the entire experience. From the manual that speaks plainly and unobtusely, to the simple bits and hexes, the game is almost humble in its presentation.

The game itself is rather unique, as it throws every notion that players have of ownership and territory out the window. In Roads & Boats, you have a home hex and some transportation vehicles. Eventually you'll get some goods on those transporters and build yourself some walls, and that's the extent of "your" stuff in the game. Everything else, every other building, good, or other resource is up for grabs belonging to no one. People will violate "your" territory constantly and take "your" goods to go make other goods. As Yoda once said, "You must unlearn what you have learned". You can't sit back and just try to meaninglessly defend what you might think is your lands just because you started there. You need to stay mobile, keep producing, and work to make stuff and score points.

Roads & Boats takes some getting used to, but it's still a well-designed and engaging gaming experience. If nothing else, you really ought to play simply for the opportunity to broaden your gaming horizons and learn to think differently on the fly. The game's landscape can change rather quickly, so if a long-term strategy becomes no longer viable, you have to adapt or abandon your original plan. This is mostly true of other games, but it can be surprising how fast things can change in Roads & Boats. All in all, it's a wonderful game that I look forward to playing again. 8/10.

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