Game Review: Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker - Rio Grande Games
2-4 Players; ages 10+
1 hour to play
$75

Galaxy Trucker is a great game with a good amount of chance involved, making it a fun board game for all. In Galaxy Trucker, each player is an intergalactic trucker who has to get their ship and as much cargo as possible across the galaxy while racing against the other players. The player who can earn the most space credits (money) by the end of the third race is the winner.

Each game round consists of a two basic phases - build and race. In the build phase, players work in real time to build their ship. Players scramble for ship pieces (tiles) such as cargo holds, cabins, lasers, shields and engines, and place them on their card to design their ship. Once players have completed their ships (the first round you can take as long as you want, in later rounds players are forced to finish within a minute of the first player done), then the race begins!

For each race there is a small deck of cards that represent things encountered during the race. Things such as planets to pick up carge, space pirates who attack your ship, meteor swarms that smash your ship to pieces, and open space where you gun your engines to try to get ahead are all examples of events you might encounter. Once all the cards are resolved, the race is over and money is handed out. Then the players return all their ship pieces to the pile, get a new ship card (bigger and better!) and it all starts again.

The game is well designed to bring new players into the fold easily (the first race is very basic, then additional rules are added for the second and third) and with a rule book of only 16 pages it isn't too overbearing to read and teach.

I would classify this game just beyond a "gateway game". If your players are into games, this is a good one that while involving plenty of strategy - your best laid plans can quickly end with poor luck during a meteor swarm. Great for an evening of fun, entertaining, and low pressure gaming for those who are into board games.

One last note: Don't be intimidated by the price tag! I know $75 is a lot for a board game, but there is a large amount of quality game components in that box, and those experienced board gamers out there will see the justification of the price when they open the box.

Weekly Gaming Update VI: Three in a row!

I got in a solid three days of gaming to wrap up my spring break. Great friends and great gaming, I couldn't have asked for more!

Thursday:
Warhammer 40K - 1250 pts, Space Marines vs. Necrons

Friday:
Dungeons & Dragons - 4E, Elven campaign

Saturday:
Galaxy Trucker - fantastic, out-of-control, fun board game
Hive - excellent quick, elegant and deep two player game
Taluva - a fantastic game, plays excellent from 2-4 players
Carcassonne: The City - one of my favorite Carcassonne variants
TransAmerica - fantastic train game, good gateway game
Blokus - great spacial sense game...you're brain will surprise you!
Coloretto - amazing and devious card game, great gateway game

Game Review: Hive

Hive - Gen42 Games
2 players; ages 8+
20 minutes to play
~$30

Hive is a head to head game that can easily be described as a game with elegantly simple rules with deep chess-like strategy.

Each player has a tile set consisting of 11 tiles made up of 5 different insects (1 Queen Bee, 3 Grasshoppers, 3 Soldier Ants, 2 Spiders, 2 Beetles), each with it's own style of movement. The object of the game is to get your opponent's Queen Bee completely surrounded before he does the same to you.

In this game, the playing pieces actually form the play area as they are brought in a moved around (called the Hive). The game begins with each player having all their tiles in reserve, and on your turn you can bring another tile into the game or move tiles that are already in the game. The unique movements of the insects create for some very diverse strategies and options making each game very unique.

Another great feature of this game is the playing pieces themselves. These are nice heavy tiles that are easily portable and washable, which means you can take this anywhere (I'm sure mine will get some play this summer on the beach) without worrying about ruining your game.

There is also an expansion tile set called The Mosquito which brings even more devious tactics into the game.

I can't even begin to express my love for this game - it brings many elements together that I like in a game, not least of which is quick, relaxed head-to-head style play with a monstrous replay factor (most of the time several games in a row are played). This is a must have for a game collection that includes two-player only games.

You can learn how to play and even play online by following the link to the Hive website.

Weekly Gaming Update V: Now with more Hive!

Got in another good round of board games this week: On Friday night I played a 750 point game of Warhammer 40K - in which my Daemonhunters got wiped off the table (but not as bad as I thought they would). Saturday I played about three more games of Hive, which I still can't recommend enough, and two games of Coloretto.

I brought in a few new games this week also - namely Galaxy Trucker, which will get played next weekend, and The Mosquito, which is a tile expansion for Hive (which in case you can't tell, is one of my current favorite games).

I'm hoping to top it all off with a game of Red Dragon Inn tonight. =)

Weekly Gaming Update: LAN Style

Friday night a friend hosted a LAN party - and I got to play some great games of Unreal Tournament, Quake III, Rise of Nations (awesome), Rome: Total War (I sucked, but it was fun), and Starcraft (not something to learn on the fly when people are very experienced). I'm hoping we get to do this again sometime soon, but with a smaller game selection so I can gain some experience and start being more competitive.

I spent a bit less time than normal playing this Saturday, but I did manage to sneak in three games of Hive, an amazing board game for two (I'll be writing up a review sometime this week).

I was able to add some long awaited titles to the collection, as well as some random items. My Blood Bowl starter set finally came in, so I'll be able to get rolling on that fantastic game. Also, Cutthroat Caverns finally got back in distribution, so that one came home...I still don't even have the cellophane off of it yet. I stumbled across Hive and picked that up, and I highly recommend you do the same.

For miniatures, I picked up a Technobridge terrain piece so when I finally get to build my gaming table I'll actually have some terrain to use. Finally, my Dad came across an old box of mine that had some samurai warriors mounted on horseback - it's always good to find some old minis. I'll be stashing those away until a good historical 25mm Samurai rule set comes out.

Game Review: TransAmerica

TransAmerica - Rio Grande Games
2-6 players; ages 8+
30 minutes to play
~$30

TransAmerica is a railroad building game where players work to connect their five U.S. cities through the quickly expanding network of train tracks. The game rules are elegantly simple, making the game not only easy to learn, but allows new players to be competitive on their first game.

The game takes place over several game rounds. In each round players are randomly dealt five cities, one from each major area of the game board, which they must connect to their main hub before the other players are able to connect theirs. On each game turn a player simply adds two tracks to their network to get closer to their goal. As networks connect and then build off each other, the game round comes to a quick but intense finish. The players then score points (or rather, lose points based on how far from reaching their goal they were), the board is cleared, and a new round is started. Game play continues until one player "goes bust", and the player who managed to lose the least points is the winner.

With it's easy game mechanics, short play time, and the interesting blend of competitive and cooperative elements TransAmerica is easily a must have for any game collection. It ranks in my top 5 games that bridge the gap between non-gamers and euro board games. I have yet to play the game with anyone (gamer or non-gamer alike) that has given it anything but a thumbs up; quite often we end up playing several games in a row.

There is also a TransEuropa version that lets you make connections throughout Europe.

Note: Originally published by Rio Grande Games, this is currently listed as out of print on their site. I think it may currently be published by Winning Move Games and/or Immortal Eyes Games. Either way, it is available at your local specialist gaming store and even comes packaged with a neat game expansion.

Weekly Gaming Update IV: Low Key

Had a pretty low key weekend of gaming, just spent a few hours working on learning the rules for Hordes - that game has some brutal combat. Pieces on both side were dying all over the place, unfortunately I died faster. =/

Picked up the new Killer Bunnies and Pandemic board games, as well as a Gun Mage Adept for my Cygnar WarMachine army that I'm building. That brings me up to 350 points...completely unassembled. Looks like I've got some work to do.

Weekly Gaming Update III: Extravaganza!

Friday: Went to Gamers Haven and picked up The Gardens of the Allhambra board game, along with a rulebook and Cygnar starter set for WarMachine, and a new mini for my Hordes Circle Oberos army. Woo!

Saturday: Friends came by and we rocked out on a ridiculous amount of games. Played some Yetisburg, Masons, Oshi, Go, Geometry Wars: Galaxy, Defend Your Castle, and World of Goo.

Sunday: Woke up and played some more video games (felt like being a little kid again) and will cap it all off with a game of Euchre tonight.

Excellence.

Battle Masters

I was really excited to stumble on this today: Battle Masters is actually my old game from my earlier years that I found while digging through some stuff, but it's now been brought home. It's an old game that Milton Bradley did in cooperation with Citadel Miniatures - units of miscellaneous bad guys go up against miscellaneous good guys in this epic struggle on a monstrous hex map...each hex fits a unit of guys, just to put it in scale...definitely a game for the floor.