Professor Layton and the Curious Village

The DS has always been a favorite of mine for its puzzle games and this one is just fantastic. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a great puzzle game. Its an adventure puzzle game where you play Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke who are trying to discover the location of a lost golden apple which is somewhere in the curious village.
It's basically a stream of puzzles that need to be solved and not since the days of Perplexcity have i been so into my puzzles. They vary from easy to difficult and as you solve them the mystery expands.

The style is a french / anime mix that works really well although the "Cor Blimey Guv" cockney accents bring a smile. It looks good and plays easily i'm hooked.

Power Grid

Allot of games have hit the table since my last post, so I need to increase my blogging, but we played Power Grid last Friday night at the monthly gathering of P.O.B. (Portsmouth on Board).

It was a funny night, only 6 of us turned up for varying reasons and all the big games we had were for a maximim of 5 players. Ed quickly popped home to grab his favorite, Power Grid.
Only one of us had not played it before so after a quick reap of the rules we started to buy our plants and power up Germany.

The game started of slowly with us all taking time to expand our power grids and power up Germany, but as soon as phase 2 was reached Ed the human calculator when't into a build frenzy and hit the 15 city limit. His power plants could only power 12 cities, but that was still more than the rest of us could manage. So a game was won with a well played manouver.

A few other games hit the table before time was called but nothing as big as Power Grid. If you haven't played it before I really recommend it.

Hive

Hive is rapidly becomming my most played game, the reason being its fast to play with no setup time.
I grabbed this after Christmas and its a fantastic game. For your money you get two sets of 13 bakelite peices. These are just lovely chunky smooth pieces that have this great feel to themselves.

Players take turn in placing a piece, with the pieces depicting an insect. Each insect has its own way of moving like chess. But its much easier to play than chess and you are not constrained with a board.
The first couple of games play very quickly as you learn how the game works and what pieces do what. But after that the real fun kicks in and games start taking 15-20 mins as you each start playing more moves.

So far I am loving this game, maybe after a while I may have burned out on it. But its currently living in my bag so I can play a game whenever there is a free table and opponent.

Last Night on Earth

Last night on Earth hit the table at the Portsmouth Board Game group last night. Its a bit of an ameritrash game but its allot of fun.
You play a typical stereotype character from a horror film, such as the priest, high school quarterback or sheriff. Another player takes the role of zombie controller. A scenario is picked where the hero's in the game have to achieve some goals such as kill a number of zombies or find the car keys and escape in the truck.

The game itself is quite light, there are a number of scenarios to use and the board is modular so you can change things around a bit. But the best thing about the game is the production values. This game has been put together so well, there are loads of nice counters, plastic zombies great cards. You even get a cd of atmospheric music to play while you are trying to battle through the zombies. All of the artwork is photographic and just oozes theme and style.

I really enjoyed this game last night, it was a bit tense at times when we were hunting for the car keys and gas but everything came together at the end and we managed to beat Ollie and Leona the zombie overlords.

"Eat dirt Zombie....."

DS : Jewel Quests Expeditions

Time for another puzzle game on the DS. I think that the DS is possibly the best platform for puzzle type games. I just seem to get drawn into them and will continally shift coloured blocks about th screen.

This latest one is a conversion of a game originally put out for mobile phones. Its your typical move blocks to line them up and they dissapear fare. Nothing original there, as the blocks are cleared the background turns gold. When all of the squares are gold you have finished the level.
Now this is what sets it appart from other puzzle games I have played. When you complete a level you get a piece of a story, its all about some 1920's style adventurer going through Africa looking for the "Gem Board". Every time you complete a level you get further into the story.
The levels get harder, but when you complete a tough one there is a sense of achievement. ITs not a continual rainfall of blocks that just get faster and faster.

So, if you are after a nice puzzle game give it a go. I wouldn't pay full price or it unless you are a die hard puzzle addict. But it should appear in the bargin bin or second hand shelf soon.

Mr Jack

This is one of the new hot games, and one that has been on my wish list for a couple of monthes.
It's a two player game where one player plays a Jack the ripper character trying to escape from the board. The other player plays detectives trying to deduct who the Jack character is.
I think its got the capability of being a bit of a brain burner.

There is an online version of the game which is free, its here http://mrjack.biludi.de/

So if you fancy a new 2 player game to play over the web give it a go.

Secret Santa

I am a member of the Board Game Geek website, its a great site that has a huge amount of resources on board games. Every year they put together a seret santa, this year over 1000 people signed up and a couple of weeks ago got there recipient.
Mine is in Oz this year, so I looked at there wish list found a store in Sydney that delivered and ordered up a game that they wanted.

Today I had a delivery from Shire Games, nothing I had ordered so it only meant that my santa had come good and my delivery had arrived. Opening the box I had three nicely wrapped packages and a hint to the location of my secret santa.

Hands up, I couldn't wait and openend them up. My Santa had come good, well good in fact.

I had A Game of Thrones, Zooloretto and some expansions for Zooloretto.

Santa whoever you are, thanks mate you have made my day.