Sionnachuighiim

The designers of Yomi have everything you need to replay your Street Fighter glory days — colorful fighters, excellent art, and brutal combos.

While a bit lacking in the backstory, this game more than makes up for it in its simple mechanics and quick-thinking, rewarding gameplay.

The game revolves around a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, with Throws – Attacks – and Defenses (Dodges/Blocks), with Supermoves and Jokers thrown in for a fighting style quite reminiscent of Guilty Gear X2 # Reload, for you fans of the fighting game genre.

Many different character styles and a slew of interesting options leave you with the closest I’ve ever seen a card game come to emulating the video games they seek to mimic.

Excellent — and with a simple modification, it can become a three-way brawl! (look for this modification in the Game Tips section)

What can one say succinctly about one of the longest sit-down games they’ve ever played?

This game is not for the casual gamer, lest they be a fan of the Cthulhu mythos.

I am an avid reader and a fan of Lovecraft’s work and it was still a mountain of writing to wade through before we could progress smoothly.

That said, once the different stages of play are understood the gameplay becomes secondary to the immersion.

When a group of players actively participate in a round of Arkham Horror, they take on the roles of various investigators who seek to explore and prevent incursion into our world by malevolent and often entirely incomprehensible Ancient Horrors, Great Old Ones, and the like.

Gathering clues and avoiding the monstrous servants and byblows of these horrors, the group must work together, or die separately.

It all comes to a head if the players cannot stop the Horror in a climactic and nigh-impossible showdown of epic proportions.

This game is magnificent, and as the title of my review states – well worth the learning curve.

Gather some friends on a night the stars are right, a brew or two apiece (more hazards losing your ability to play successfully) and fight the end of your world.

Don’t get lost in another dimension.

My first experience with Catan was at a party — not the expected fare for drinking and revelry, but I fell in love.

Simple enough for casual play and involved enough for competition, this game has provided endless rounds of house chore shuffling championships and a platform for lighthearted bragging the likes of which I have never seen.

The moment someone’s traded wheat becomes their undoing, the look on someone’s face when you Monopolize the resources you just traded them —

This game is elegant, simple, and still incredibly fun.

I recommend a rankings chart and playing it at dinner in communal / co-op housing situations and playing with the first expansion.

A game that is simple to learn that anyone can master who puts their mind to it. 5 stars all around, thanks for this gem, Mayfair Games!

A game that is in its ideal form an engaging, immersive romp – where you take on the role of a dimension-spanning wizard(ess), using spells and monsters to defeat an opponent – sadly, unrealized.

This game is diluted by the culture of “win-buying” surrounding the game; in any casual format the individual who has spent the most on cards will likely take the victory.

There is a lot to be said for the fun of a game’s replay value. Combine casual, friendly games with the ease of learning Magic (the basic “pay mana for spells” stage, supplemented with knowledge of specific abilities’ names), and the interesting and engaging quality cards – artwork, flavor text, and an evolving background story filled with larger-than-life characters, magical events and sorcerous creatures – and you have a fun game between friends.

When the game’s balance is threatened by the simplicity of there being “haves” and “have-nots”, however – those whose decks are padded or conversely unpadded by expensive rare cards – there is no fun outside of very formulaic draft tournaments, where people’s skill is matched evenly and the amount you spend is rigidly controlled.

This is a game that seems to be replayable under very specific – and often costly – circumstances; a steady stream of capital for the game’s creators.

And while I am not averse to paying for my fun and for the hard work of artist and creators, I am averse to feeling a bit like a sponge being wrung out by the game makers.