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Talking about Gaming the Irish Way!

Mar 10, 2009

Exp: A tropically fruity selection of game-and-similar reviews. Liam concludes that the play's the thing with Shakespeare: The Bard Game, humbug recounts schmoozing and backstabbing around France at a Diplomacy tournament, Shane simpers over his favourite computer game (ehh, tactical combat simulation) Combat Mission: Shock Force and Dave refuses to review his way from sea to shining sea in TransAmerica.


Skippy
almost sixteen years ago

Shakespeare reminded me of a \'European tourism\' game we used to have. I don\'t remember what it was called, but it involved travelling around Europe and answering geography questions, like a Trivial Pursuit/Trans-Europa hybrid. Also there was a roadblock, and you could place it in such a way to make it impossible to visit the British Isles. I think Shakespeare does a good job of combining that \'visit places and answer questions\' aspect of non-gamery board games with the \'spend resources to accumulate points\' gamery aspect.

Also the time limit is a great innovation, and I can think of many games which would benefit from its adoption in place of the race to a certain points threshold.

Donald Dennis
almost sixteen years ago

TransAmerica, a 15? Really? My score would be about an 9. It is more of a geography teaching tool than a great game.

Try playing it with the vexation and it is a much better game. Otherwise it is so simple it is more of an introduction to train games than a great train game in and of itself.

Liam
almost sixteen years ago

Trans-america does seem to be a bit of a marmite job, you love it or you hate it. At Itzacon I tried gathering up some players and one player said he refused to play \"join the dots\" :D.

For me simplicity of it is one of the major appeals. It\'s not going to be the mainstay of the night of the night but it is certainly great for a quick game for killing some time while waiting on folks to turn up etc.