Tim Yatse

To me and my friends, Arkham Horror is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

It’s got a confusing rulebook full of contradictory rules, gameplay that consists of rolling dice and rolling dice alone, and a complete lack of interesting gameplay choices.

Yet it’s consistently regarded by many to be an enjoyable game with excellent replay value. I just don’t see it. My friends don’t see it. This game, to me, is extremely boring, and I have tried playing it roughly half a dozen times, trying to decipher what exactly the magic is, and I come up blank. I’ve tried with expansions, I’ve tried with the vanilla game. I don’t get it.

In fact, the only thing that the game has going for it is the HP Lovecraft theme, and it seems that people excuse this game of its many failings based on that alone.

Every turn, you only really do what has already decided to be the optimal choice. If there’s a Clue, get that. If there’s a monster you can beat, kill that. If you’ve got a good shot at sealing a gate, go do that. Granted, this is a problem with many pure co-op games, but rarely is the choice such a no-brainer.

The event cards are completely arbitrary, and battles are ho-hum, both ending after a large number of dice are rolled.

Oh, and the dice! SO many dice! Every time you want to do anything, you roll dice! Oh no, your dice weren’t good enough? Quick, time to roll them again! Welp, you died. Time to lose an item and some money and get right back to rolling dice again. Also, I hope you don’t get to the Ancient One battle or else you’re going to be punished by needing to roll literally hundreds of dice!

People talk up the theme, but I don’t see it. In fact, to me it seems completely disjointed. Most of the enjoyment I’ve had has come from laughing at the nonsense that ends up happening, such as when one of my friends ended up tripping, then getting lost in time and space as a result. That’s quite a fall!

In case you haven’t guessed by now, I don’t like this game. More to the point, and I don’t want people to look at this game as an example of what board games are about. Out of the several times I’ve played it, neither I or the people I played with came out feeling like we had a good time.

There are fantastic games out there, and this is not one of them. If you want a co-op game, try Pandemic. If you want theme, play Tales of the Arabian Nights. If you want to go on an adventure, play Descent. If you want that feeling you are just scraping through by the skin of your teeth, play Space Alert.

If you want to spend four hours and get out of it feeling like all you really did was roll a bunch of dice then play this, but kindly don’t invite me. I hope for your sake that you enjoy yourself.