Big City and Filthy Rich

More board game reviews? SHOCKING.

Big City




There are some games that are way too complicated for their own good. Tribute is one example of an elaborate game, full of spectacular art and a big board, for a game that is essentially Bohnanza. It's fun enough, but the setup of the game takes some almost more effort than it's worth. Cleopatra almost falls into this trap as well, but manages to rise above its modest game mechanics with fantastic bits and amazing art. Big City falls somewhere in the middle of these two examples. It's more fun than Tribute because building a city with little plastic buildings is viscerally satisfying and cool, although it lacks some of the complexity and eye-catching art of Cleopatra.

Big City is all about area control. Players attempt to erect (tee hee) buildings in certain area to score the most points possible while meeting the prerequisites of the structure. Got an area that's on the "outskirts" of town? Put a residential area there! Want to add big multipliers to the business that you're about to construct? Add a train nearby. There are several buildings with varying degrees of requirements, but players are still able to build most of the time.





The game itself is fun and light, but lacks any real strategy and ends up being somewhat random at times. All that is trumped by the major attraction of Big City, which are the city pieces. Building a little city on the table ends up being more fun than it ought to be, and that's why this game is worth a play every once in a while.

Filthy Rich




I'm not only a sucker for cool bits in a game, I'm also a fool for a clever game play mechanic. A game like Schrille Stille has both, with its awesome and ingenious secret CD player shaped voting machine. Filthy Rich may not be as innovative, but it's still a cool fusion of game mechanic and game pieces.

When you first sit down to play Filthy Rich, the central "board", might be familiar to you. That is, it is recognizable to those people who either collected sports cards or played collectible card games. It should come as no surprise than that the designer for Filthy Rich is none other than Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering. It's also not a stretch to see how he might have gotten the idea for the game, as I'm sure Mr. Garfield has seen many binders full of clear card holders. He probably noticed that because of empty card slots, it was possible to see a card in a pocket several pages below whatever part of the binder he was in. I would imagine that Filthy Rich was born soon after.

The game is simple. To win, you must buy three expensive luxury cards that do nothing except win you the game. To buy the cards, you'll need money, and to get money, you'll need to buy and place ads. After an ad is bought it's sleeved in one of the game binder's clear sheets. A die is rolled, and you check to see if anyone noticed your ad so you can get paid. Every turn, the page could turn, and your ad might get covered up by someone else's ad. The game progresses like this, with special action cards spicing up the game along the way.

Overall this is a relatively quick and enjoyable game, that will make you look at card binders just a little differently from now on.