Note: I currently use a different profile regularly (long story). If you wish to mail me, send it to my gexthegecko profile (the one without the 'green').
Arkham Horror
[thanks boardgamegeek.com]
This is my first review on BGG since I just became a member today. I've been eyeing this website for a couple months ever since I decided the one thing that was missing in my life was boardgames. Some people tend to not want to play videogames (women especially), and ever since spotting a couple rpg players at my college cafeteria (on who brought Zombies!!!), I've had my interest. I've played many boardgames before, from Life, Clue, Monopoly (boring), Risk (boring), to Pente, Chess, Knockout, Gargoyles, and The Lost World Jurassic Park (the last 3 being old kid games that I used to play a long time ago). Upon seeing Zombies!!!, I realized there was a whole different style of boardgames I wasn't familiar with. So I browsed the internet and got led here. Been hooked ever since. After much studying and browsing, I determined that the top 3 games to get were Last Night on Earth, Arkham Horror, and Starcraft (I have a list that contains 18 games to get [the above included], but I figured the top 3 are the only ones worth mentioning). So after my B-Day came and went, thus getting some cash in my wallet, I was determined to get LNOE first. After 2 weeks of waiting, I went over to my game store and found out it was on back order. However, I saw the next best thing, Arkham Horror, along with a couple expansions. So I payed the $50, brought it home, and stayed up till midnight reading the rules and setting up the board, punching out the pieces and everything.
Sorry for the long intro, but this being my first review I couldn't resist. Onto the game itself, which I have currently only played single player twice. It's true what they say, the rules are a bit extensive with 24 pgs, but they make sense and go with the natural flow of the game. 386
You'll probably get the majority of it down after 1 game, correct some bits of play flaws on the 2nd game, then be looking at the FAQ by the 3rd game. More on the FAQ later.
[thanks to highprogrammer.com]
OPENING PANDORA'S BOX
The board is bigger than any board game I've played before, but that's not saying much in my case since I've only been sticking with mainstream boardgames up till now (not counting Ingenious). I did make a slight error in folding the board back up to put it away since I tore the board just a little bit (nothing noticeable, but it made me cringe and curse since I thought I just messed up my first nmg [non-mainstream game]. So take heed, be very careful when opening and closing the board.
[edit: this is the best way to open up the board]
1. Get the board which should be folded up like this:
2. Then fold it out straight so that it's only folded in half at this point.
3. All that's left to do is completely unfold the board in a manner such as this:
This is the best way to unfold the board (reverse for the safest way to fold it back up ).
End edit.
If you are by yourself, it will take a while to punch out all the cardboard pieces and such, so it's recommended you have a helper to make double time. But again, even though the bigger pieces seem to pop out just from a touch, you might want to be careful about the smaller bits, from the hearts to the skill sliders. And to make a long story short, there are a lot of pieces. I expected something like this with my first nmg, though I heard it's not as big as War of the Ring. And then there's the character stands (plastic). I thought for sure those would scrape up the cardboard character pieces, but to my surprise, they are some tough cardboard pieces. However, they do get the indentation from the plastic stands if used enough times, so I would suggest getting the other stands that are found in the Dunwich Horror expansion (yes, I bought and played that one recently). The cards are fairly tough too. I tend to shuffle them the Granny's way (just having all the cards face up/down scattered all along the floor/table and mixing them up in a sort of 'wax on wax off' method, and there wasn't a scratch on them. 622