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4
Advanced Grader
Gamer - Level 4
Go to the 1989: Dawn of Freedom page
8
Gil {Avid Gamer} May 24th, 2013
“Great game but not so good as TS”

Make no mistake. The game is good and worth buying.
It works basically the same as his brother Twilight Struggle but has a different mechanical and it takes a little time to understand. This mechanic is just the center of the game because during this turbulent year in Eastern Europe a lot of politics was held in the lower classes. The players have to win support of the working classes, the students, the elite, and so on.

Another factor that can be bad for the game is that it was a year where the events are not as well known as those that occur in TS. With this in mind, theme, although extremely well placed, is somewhat weakened because we play without knowing what event was that and what was their importance in the period.
However it is a great opportunity to learn more about the political and social history of this period in Eastern Europe.
If you have the other games in collection: Twilight Struggle and Labiryth, you need to buy this too.
But if you are in doubt between buying this or one of the other two, I recommend you buy the Twilight Struggle.

VN:F [1.9.18_1163]
4 out of 6 gamers thought this review was helpful
Player Avatar
2
Follower
Go to the Defenders of the Realm page
7
Wolfhound {Avid Gamer} May 22nd, 2013
“Enjoyed this co-op game”

Pretty easy to learn. Will be fun to play as different characters. Would be nice if pawn game pieces had some more detail, or just some way to differentiate between the different minion types other than color. At first we were thinking character would level up with better skills and equipment as the game went on, similar to Talisman. The game is actually much simpler than that and better for it. Very good overall. Look forward to playing again and to character expansions.

VN:F [1.9.18_1163]
3 out of 15 gamers thought this review was helpful
Player Avatar
3
Critic - Level 1
Freshman
Go to the Pit page
10
McDsy {Avid Gamer} May 22nd, 2013
“ONE! ONE! ONE!”

The Resistance
Coup
Love Letter
That pirate one (you know, the one with the monkey)

The not-a-card-game star has started shining particularly brightly recently.

I’d like to introduce you to their uncle. The bachelor. The one who still has long hair, rides a motorbike and pulls you aside to tell you his newest dirty jokes when your Mum’s not around.

The black sheep of the family.

The one who is still as much fun as the younger generation, but is old enough to buy you beer.

Pit (especially our copy) isn’t much to look at. The cards are a counter’s dream: bent, taped-up rips, coffee stains, and a faint whiff of bourbon. But who has time to identify cards when someone is screaming “TWO! TWO! TWO!” right in your ear?

This game is played standing up. It’s not in the rules. It’s not even a house rule. It just happens.

One moment everyone is sitting down and peacefully swapping cards in a thoroughly civilised manner; the next everyone is on their feet, shouting their deals, screaming in frustration when they get the same cards back, throwing their ‘offer’ at the player from whom they just snatched cards, getting into the face of the player they KNOW has the last two cards they need.

All players are red faced and hyperventilating, and then you hear the deep breath of someone wanting to be heard over the bedlam:

“CAAAWWNNAAAAAA!”

And with that it’s over. People relax, sit back down (or crawl out from under the table); you pick up the cards that have ended up on the floor and deal out the cards again.

A few warnings:

1. Don’t play this game late at night when your housemate needs to be up for work in four hours and sleeps above the living room.
2. If your group includes the sort of people who will throw things when angry it’s probably best to avoid this game. Or tie them to the chair.
3. If you are going to get up close and personal with players make sure you’ve washed. (You’d think it would go without saying, right?)
Finally:
4. Cut your nails.

VN:F [1.9.18_1163]
11 out of 13 gamers thought this review was helpful
Player Avatar
1
Go to the Operation: Maccabee page
9
Ricardo.C {Avid Gamer} May 17th, 2013
“My Review on Operation: Maccabee”

I’ve played tons of games, but very few fully cooperative ones. They don’t seem to be the most popular style of board game – at least among my friends; I’m just going off of personal experience! I am a huge history buff and love any game that has to do with World War II. However, I often wondered was there another angle to play a World War II game and I found it in Operation: Maccabee. Operation: Maccabee is about the horrible acts inflicted by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. This is a topic rarely addressed by lame stream media in a way that is appropriate for children. It can be especially difficult for children to process the information – not just the facts, but the reality of what actually occurred.

First things first I needed to find players who wanted to play a cooperative game and not try to kill me as a goal of winning the game. Being that my friends are all competitive I couldn’t ask them, so I asked my fiancé and her kids if they wanted to play.

With that we opened the game, and we played it that night, although the game is not difficult, it is best to review the rules to get the feel of how the game will flow. The artwork is actually really good, the style of the artwork is realistic and easy on the eye. My favorite part of the artwork would be the texture some of the paintings, the texture of the grenade, on the grenade card, looks like a grenade, the texture of the boots, on the Movement Cards, make them look like combat boots, the wood texture on the Secret Maps card, looks like wood. It is from an artist by the name of Cliff Cramp and in my opinion is a great artist, not too many can pull of textures and make them look realistic.

Rules: Each player leads a squad of commandos to liberate concentration camps and the player who rescues the most prisoners is the winner of the game, it’s that easy. The game comes with everything you need to play: 1 game board; 1 Assault Area, contained in the top of the box; 2 dreidels; 8 USA commandos; 8 UK commandos; 8 USSR commandos; 8 French commandos; 9 Nazi guards; 30 Action Cards; and 11 concentration camp tiles.

Playing this game was great and we all had fun spinning the dreidles and killing Nazi’s. One thing I did like was the use of dreidles instead dice that is a great and innovative way of using Jewish history. They game play is very interesting, it is a two part game, part board game and part dexterity game. The game play starts by spinning the dreidle, with the result of what you spun being the number of movement points you get for your current turn. Depending your movement points can be 4, 3, 1 + Action Card, and 0 with a Possible Nazi Ambush. Nazi Ambush will occur if your marker is in a red hex when you spin the dreidle and get the symbol that gives you a 0 movement, you will also get one of your commandos wounded. The red hex represents Nazi patrols. Movement on the hex board is quite simple, for example entering a forest hex cost 2 movement points, clear terrain hex cost 1 movement point, entering a mountain hex cost 3 movement points, and crossing a river hex cost only 1 movement point, but you need to have a raft action card. The best part about movement points is that if you have wounded commandos you can make your way to a resistance camp and enter it for 1 movement point, and have a chance to heal 1 or 2 of your wounded commandos. Once you make your way to a concentration camp and wish to liberate it from Nazi control, the fun begins by moving to the inside of the lid of the box with the Nazi Guards on them. From there you spin the dreidle to see if you can knock out any of the guards, once the dreidle stops you reference the symbol to see how many more guards you might of knocked out as well. It could be 2, or 1, an action card, or the commando you use might get wounded. The fun part of the game is using the action cards, such as the grenade, where you toss the dreidle like a grenade, or the Sniper card, where you use the dreidle as a sniper bullet. I took the first couple of wings, but once my fiancé and her kids got the feel for the game they caught on quickly and I had a run for my money.

Cons: One of the cons is that the cards are very hard to shuffle, and my copy had a warped hex board, and the pieces are quite small for an adult to handle

Even with those cons, I still recommend this game if you have little ones who want a game that won’t take an hour to set up or 2-3 hours to play. It is also fun for adults as well. This game has won a place in my Top 10 board games of all time!

VN:F [1.9.18_1163]
17 out of 19 gamers thought this review was helpful
Player Avatar
3
Mage Wars fan
Miniature Painter
Go to the Martian Dice page
9
Unknown {Avid Gamer} May 16th, 2013
“Martian dice is better than Zombie dice but it is no Cosmic Encounter”

So after liking zombie dice, we tryed out Martian dice.

What do you get?
A short rulebook.
And some air (Martian dice air).
13 Dice a little to big for kids hand, but you can use the cup (if the cap doesn’t fall off, I glued mine on one side, it fall off again, so I glued it again, then one time it fall off again and I never glued it back again).

What is the goal?
The rules are very good explained in other reviews and on the short rulebook.
Get 25 points (or more if you like a longer game).
You keep track with pen and paper, counters from an other games (sometimes we use the alien ships from COSMIC ENCOUNTER)

Is it fun?
Yes it is fun, but not for all day, its a very light filler game that I have played with 2-6 players. All of them liked it even more than Zombie dice. Press your luck game.

If there was a fire, would you take this game with you?
No, I would take my baby first.

So Martian dice is better than Zombie dice but it is no Cosmic Encounter (CE is a totaly different game).

VN:F [1.9.18_1163]
16 out of 21 gamers thought this review was helpful

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