Lost Cities turned out to be a dissappointment. It was a thinly disguised rummy type math game. Unfortunately while the cards had pretty pictures of lost civilizations, it lacked a lot of depth. My wife was not fond of the math for scoring at the end either (which I didn't have too much of a problem with). The game itself just really felt lacking. It was neither very competitive, nor cooperative. Sad, because I thought the Indiana Jones type theme looked really interesting, but nope the game just didn't deliver.
This game really needed the addition of other elements: challenges, traps, treasures or ANYTHING else to give the game some depth. Where are the crocodiles? quicksand? torches? maps? ANYTHING?!?
Ah well...
Next up was another VERY highly rated Euro game called Carcassonne:
Carcassonne is a tile laying game that has really great components including colorful thick cardboard tiles that depict countryside, roads and medieval city walls. It also comes with cute little painted wooden followers nicknamed "Meeples".
Despite the quality of the pieces the game seemed a bit boring. At first I was annoyed that my wife immediatly seemed to dislike the game, but as we played it steadly became apparent that this game was a slow paced, low impact game not at all like the American "battle fests" that companies like Hasbro and Milton Bradley put out.
There was also some initial confusion about allowable tile placement and we definately messed up scoring (all of us ended up with well over a hundred points each and the scoring board only goes to 49 points). I think that given time this game could grow on me, but honestly I don't think my wife will be willing to try it again without altering the game completely. To her it's all yawn and snores. I have to be sympathetic. This one is not in my top ten (even though I wish it could be). The kids seemed to like it alright though so I may look for games that have more painted wooden bits or games that have a cartoon/colorful style.
In the end we decided to break out Ticket to Ride again. We had some more fun with that until mr. kitty-cat jumped right into the middle of the board and caused the worlds most horrific derailment every seen!
Next week I'm going to try some interesting fantasy games and see how they do:
Citadels - a card game of building districts in a fantasy city
and
Quest for the Heros - a cooperative RPG style fantasy game somewhat akin to Heroquest & Talisman (both great old fantasy games from years gone by)
Wish us luck!
1 comment:
Always wanted to try Carcassonne. So maybe I won't know. Peurto Rico is supposed to be a fun game too. But still debating.
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