Cristiano and I were able to borrow a Playstation 3 for the weekend, and finally got to try out a couple of games. I mainly wanted to see if our TV could handle the graphics and if it was worth eventually getting a PS3. To be very honest, I would love to get a PS3, but the cost of it just doesn’t seem worth what you get for it in return. My sweet little PS2 takes up way less space and makes less noise, although it of course doesn’t play the newest games. Maybe when the next Final Fantasy is finally released (XIII has a release date for winter in Japan, and XII had almost a full year between Japan and Europe releases), I’ll get around to buying one. For now though the PS2 and Nintendo DS will suit me just fine.

Anyhow, one of the games we tried this weekend was Buzz! Quiz TV. Buzz! Quiz TV is the seventh game of the Buzz! series of quiz games, and is the first to appear on the PS3. It is also the first game to use the new wireless Buzz! controllers. 

I hadn’t played any of the Buzz! games before, but for a time now I’ve been curious to see how the gameplay is. The Buzz! controllers are great; you get much more a sense that you’re playing a quiz game, when you’ve got a big red button at your disposal. Besides the big red button, there are four smaller coloured buttons (blue, orange, yellow, green) for picking answers from the onscreen options. I love the fact that these controllers are wireless; I can’t imagine playing this game with wired ones, especially with our living room setup. 

There are two local options of games: single-player and multiplayer. When playing single player, you get three rounds of Stop The Clock: the faster you answer a question, the more points you get. The multiplayer game consists of seven rounds:

Point Builder: for each correct answer you get 250 points.
Pass The Bomb: answer a question correctly to pass the bomb to another player. If you end up with the bomb when it explodes, you loose 300 points.
Fastest Finger: the player who answers the fastest receives the most points (400). Every subsequent correct answer receives less points.
Pie Fight: if you answer the fastest, you get control of the pie and can throw it at another player. When hit by two pies, you’re kicked out of the round.
Point Stealer: the player who answers the fastest may steal points from another player.
High Stakes: after a brief description of the topic, you have to bet a number of points. If you answer correctly, you win those points. If you answer incorrectly, you loose the points.
Final Countdown: each player is on a raised platform that is slowly moving to the ground. Answering questions correctly slow you from hitting the ground. Answering questions incorrectly speed it up. When your platform hits the ground, you’re kicked out. The player that remains standing wins.

I really liked how this game was setup; the different types of rounds add an interesting aspect to the game. Before each round, the player with the least points is allowed to choose the topic, allowing them to pick other player’s weaknesses (or their own strengths). Some rounds seem a bit unbalanced when only playing with two players (like the Pie round), but it’s still a lot of fun. The topics have a nice range from general knowledge to movies to science and technology. There was the option to play a game within a specific topic (like movies), but I would have loved to seen the opposite: a way to exclude topics. I’m fine with most questions, but I don’t really like sport (and neither does Cristiano), and we would have loved to see a way to leave those questions out of it.

There’s also an option to play online, but I haven’t tried that out yet. The idea is that players are able to create their own quizzes, each containing 8 questions. These can then be shared online with other players. There are also special question packs available in the Playstation store, but these will also be available on the special edition version

I did enjoy this game and I’m looking into getting a PS2 version. It’s a great party game and more addictive than I first imagined it to be. The wireless controllers are a must-have; they make the game so much easier. I’m now curious to see how the specialized versions are, especially the Hollywood one.

Buzz! Quiz TV – game plus buzzers for £39.99 on Amazon, special edition version plus buzzers for £42.99 on Amazon

Back at my student house in Delft, we used to play this game a lot. I never got around to getting the game myself, cause the rules said it was only for 3-4 players. We recently found out though that it is playable with 2 if you adapt some of the rules. It’s a great game and one of must-haves for a true boardgame geek.

Title: Settlers of Catan (Kolonisten van Catan)
Type: Boardgame
#Players: 3-4 (or 2 with adapted rules, 5-6 with extensions)
Cost: £20-25

Settlers of Catan is a played on a board of hexagonal tiles, that represent the island of Catan. At the start of the game the tiles are placed randomly or in a specific predetermined manner (but always with sea tiles surrounding it all). The island tiles represent the different resources: grain, wood, brick, ore and sheep (there aren’t any set names for the resources, we keep using other words like wheat, stone and clay too). Numbered tokens are then placed on each of the tiles, except for the resourceless “desert” tile. 

The idea of Settlers is to build settlements and roads at the corners and on the edges of the hexes. Every player starts the game with two settlements and two adjoining road segments, and has to collect resources to be able to build more. You’re only allowed to build settlements at the end of one of your roads, and no two settlements may be built on adjacent corners. During each players turn, a roll of two dice determines which resources are allowed to be collected: every person with a settlement on the tiles with the number that was thrown is allowed to collect that resource. For instance, in the game in the picture above: if the number 5 is thrown, both the white player and the blue player may collect a brick, while the orange player is allowed to collect a grain.

During a players turn that player may spend their resource cards to build more. A brick and a wood builds a road. A brick, a wood, a sheep and a grain builds a settlement. And two grain and three ore builds a city. A city is an upgrade of a settlement, allowing a player to pick up double the resources for the adjacent tiles. Besides the building of the above, you can also use resources to buy a development card; these cards can do various useful things (I won’t explain all the different types of cards here).

The winner is the player who first reaches 10 victory points. You receive a victory point for each settlement you have on the board, and two victory points for every city you have (so no points for roads). Various other achievements, like building the longest road, can give you extra victory points.

The most interesting aspect of Settlers is the trading. Players are allowed to trade the resources they have in their hand, with other players or “off-island”. During your turn, you can initiate trades with any of the other players (if they are willing). This can be particularly handy if you’re not on a certain resource, while others are. With the “off-island” trade, you can exchange 4 of the same cards into any card you want (with the “bank”). Furthermore, there are special sea ports on the map that allow people with settlements on them better trading prices (like exchanging 2 sheep for anything you want).

As I said at the beginning of this post, Settlers of Catan is meant to be played with 3-4 people. From my own experiences 3 is the best number to play with. When you’re with 4 it’s still possible, but the map is slightly more full, leaving less space to maneuver. There are various adapted rules for 2 players floating around on the internet, and I’ve tried a couple of them. I’m still not completely happy with that game play though, and still trying to refine it.

Like Carcasonne, Settlers of Catan is a “friendly” game. All players are in play until the end of the game (unlike Risk) and there are no ways to destroy points from people. There are ways to annoy people though like by refusing to trade, cutting off road routes, taking the longest road (by creating a road longer) and using special development cards. The placement of your settlements at the start of game can be crucial to the rest of your game; you have to give yourself enough space to build more roads and settlements (without getting boxed in), while trying to receive the best possible resources.

Settlers of Catan is a fun board game, which requires logical thinking, smooth talking and scheming. There are a couple of different expansions available, but I haven’t tried them out yet. It’s a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon with a couple of friends, and (like I said before) a must-have for every boardgame geek.

Settlers of Catan is available for £29.99 at The Orc’s Nest (near Cambridge Circus), £33 on Amazon.co.uk, and $33 on Amazon.com.

Regular readers will know how much I love puzzles and games. I haven’t done that many game reviews on this blog, but I want to change that. I’ll be reviewing old and new games I’ve played. And not only video games! I’m going back to basics with board games and social games, cause some of these games are just as much fun (sometimes even more) as sitting behind a computer and killing each other (not that that’s the only thing you can do with video games). Plus I find not enough people play these type of games nowadays, which they should! 

To start this off, I’ve chosen Carcassonne, a board game I’ve been addicted to these past weeks.

Title: Carcassonne
Type: Boardgame
Number of players: 5 (but with a certain expansion added: 6)
Cost: £15-£20 for the basic game (depending on where you get it)

Carcassonne starts with a single tile in the middle of the table, portraying part of a medieval landscape. All other tiles are shuffled and placed face down in a stack. On each turn a player draws a tile and places it adjacent to another tile already on the table. Tiles must be placed in a logical way: roads must extend roads, fields to fields, cities to cities. Simple so far, right?

Besides drawing and placing tiles, every player has seven ‘meeples’, wooden follower pieces to score points. After placing a tile, a player can decide to station a meeple on that tile. The meeple must be placed on a specific feature – road, city, field, cloister – and may not be placed if that feature has already been claimed. Whenever a feature is completed, a player scores points.

The game ends when the last tile is played and the player with the most points wins. And that’s all there is to this game. The basics are so simple, you don’t really need a lengthy explanation to start playing. Kids will grasp the basics just as quick as adults and there aren’t a lot of rules to remember. The game play itself can be quite quick and easy, depending on who you’re playing against. The way we play it though, we tend to take ages trying to figure out what’s the “optimal” spot to place a tile.

What I really love about this game though is the number of expansions available, each changing the game in unique ways. For example, the River expansions replaces the single start tile with a river of a couple tiles long (all that changes in game play is the amount of options at the start). With the King and Scout expansion, there is an extra set of points for the player with the largest city and largest road. I love the Traders and Builders expansion, cause it adds two special meeples: one to score extra points in the fields (in the form of a little pig, called affectionately a ‘peeple’), and one to be able to draw an extra tile per turn (a “builder”, so a ‘beeple’). I’m simplifying it a bit now, but each expansion creates a different dynamic to the game and by combining expansions you can tailor the game to exactly how you like it.

If you like the sound of this definitely try out the basic set, or try to grab me at the next BarCampLondon. I’m going to bring it with me then to play during the overnight and maybe even do a session about it.

Carcassonne (the basic set) is available on Amazon.co.uk for £14.95 and on Amazon.com for $22.87.