Fair Play Games - Customer Reviews (Raves)

Customer Raves

Customer Raves
(Click on a game, person's name or game group to see other matching raves)

Dominion: Seaside Expansion (View Game)
Ian Lai

Seaside is really fun. The new orange cards can be a little confusing, but once you get the hang of them they open a whole new level of gameplay and strategy. Even without these new orange cards, there are many great cards here, such as the sea hag or warehouse :)

Dominion: Prosperity (View Game)
Ian Lai

Prosperity is a favorite expansion for a lot of Dominion fans :) The platinums and colonies can completely change the game, opening the door for many alternate strategies. The new VP system is great too in Bishop and Monument

Arkham Horror Board Game (View Game)
Ian Lai

This game is beautifully designed. There's so much to do, and you're always on your toes! Keep in mind though that this game is extremely complicated and requires pretty much an entire day to play. It's also extremely hard - but you still have fun when you lose :)

Cranium (View Game)
Ian Lai

This game is great for families and small parties. My favorite part is the sculpting charades - it's really challenging and almost always hilarious. The hardest category for my group is the music trivia ( we don't know much about pop ) but we still have a great time making up our own songs or music videos when we have to!

Summoner Wars: Reinforcement Packs Goodwin's Blade (View Game)
Ian Lai

I love this expansion. Skhull is such a good champion for the Fallen Kingdom. Most importantly, it really evens the field for the vanguards. Cavalry knights are a great way to keep your opponent guessing with your defensive play, and the new champions are GREAT substitutions for Raechel or the Ark Angel.

Battleship (View Game)
Ian Lai

Battleship is great for playing with younger boys. The war theme really draws them in, and it's a GREAT way introduce people to strategic play.

Apples to Apples (View Game)
Ian Lai

At this point, apples to apples is a classic. One of those universal appeal games that everyone can have fun judging and putting in wacky combination. It's a great icebreaker game because people will learn others' personalities and judging styles as they play!

Telestrations Party Game (View Game)
Ian Lai

This is my favorite party game. I just love it to death, it's like pictionary and telephone combined but streamlined. Marker/whiteboard system replaces paper and it's easy to buy refills. This game really lets your creative juices flow, and you have fun even if you lose!

UNO (View Game)
Ian Lai

UNO is great for any family, especially with younger kids. Probably the best part of UNO is how broad it's appeal is: if you're at a party and people can't decide what to do, UNO is almost always good for at least one or two rounds :) Just make sure not to put into too many players!

Rex: Final Days of an Empire (View Game)
Ian Lai

Rex is amazing. It streamlines diplomacy (alliances are binding!) and has really creative assymetric factions. It's complex, but any group that loves diplomacy games will love the depth in this game :)

Pandemic - 2013 Edition (View Game)
Ian Lai

The flagship cooperative board game! It's lots of fun, and every game is different. Finally, it's easy to learn, and the different possible difficulty levels let any skill level have fun!

Summoner Wars: Mercenaries (View Game)
Ian Lai

The mercenaries are so cool! They're one of the most versatile decks in Summoner Wars because they have no mercenary restriction - you can never tell what's going to come out of a mercenary player! And they have amazing combos with stone golems allowing you to summon on your opponents side of the board without any warning :)

Bang!: A Fist Full of Cards (View Game)
Ian Lai

Oh man. I love this xpac (comes with the bullet!) if only because of the titular "fistful of cards" event. It completely turns games around, you can be completely losing, and this will give you a chance at a comeback. On the other hand, it can be really frustrating, so sometimes we choose to play without it. Either way, there are plenty of cool characters and events in this xpac, I would highly recommend it if you already like BANG!

Talisman (4th Edition) (View Game)
Ian Lai

Talisman has great components and can be a lot of fun for a group to play. It is really luck based, so if you like deep strategy this game might not float your boat, but it's really easy to pick and play for casual gamers, and it's got a really cool theme :)

Thunderstone (View Game)
Ian Lai

Many people compare thunderstone to dominion, and many people love it. It's got the same deck-building mechanics. However, for the same reason that other people love it, I end up preferring dominion... let me try to explain why: Theme: Many people think that thunderstone is more thematic, and they like the idea of being an explorer and fighting evil monsters. However, this hurts the game for me. It's got a cool theme, but it doesn't really satisfy everything that I want from a fantasy game. It's too abstract, so I don't really feel like I'm fighting monsters, especially when I send people on suicide missions just to get rid of them in my deck. Randomness: People like how the monsters and the order they appear in change the game and strategies, but I don't like this. I really prefer the freedom in Dominion and I hate getting an awesome monster-killing hand just to find all the monsters available for killing aren't worth anything after the person ahead of me killed the best one. It ends up being frustrating to me. For these reasons, I end up preferring Dominion. However, it's still fun and has great strategy, it's just not my favorite.

Taboo (View Game)
Ian Lai

Man, taboo is so fun! Almost every party that I've played taboo in before, at least 8 people were entertained for at least an hour. Even complete strangers will have fun playing taboo with one another; that's how universal it is :) A great party game, but it is a PARTY GAME. Keep that in mind! Also, most people ditch the in-game sensors with the advent of mobile phones :) The rules are very easy to modify so you can play variants extremely easy.

Dominion: Dark Ages Expansion (View Game)
Ian Lai

My opinion dark ages (short as possible for digest!) Pros - Really good combos in this expansion - Trashing theme allows for a lot of streamlined decks - you feel like you have a lot more control in many cases - Lots and lots of new kingdom cards! Cons: - Ruins (new curse-ish cards) are cool, but are only used very rarely. - More complex than previous sets. Harder to teach and may slow down some players considerably

Settlers of Catan Board Game (View Game)
Ian Lai

A lot of people love catan, and I think that the rave and all of that is well deserved. I, for one, don't actually like this game though, and I'll try to explain why very succinctly. It's very easy to get ganged up by other players, making you feel extremely helpless. Also, it's luck based, so sometimes a winner is determined in one turn through lucky dice :( There are many things that are good about Catan, but I think that many newer games do the same mechanics, but better. The sheer frustration that sometimes comes out of this game is really what does it for me :(

Bohnanza (View Game)
Ian Lai

If you're into worker/efficient management games, this game will be a lot of fun. Each game is different and it forces you to adapt to the other players. However, one of the biggest drawbacks of this game, and many games in the same genre (IMO) is that an experienced player will walk all over a newer player with the newer player having no idea why s/he lost. I think, in this game, there's nothing that replaces experience. It's not a huge deal, but it can be frustrating with some people, so keep it in mind!

Dominion Base Cards (View Game)
Ian Lai

Base cards to play with other dominion sets :) This is for you if you want: - Pretty Art. The alternate treasure/territories are beautiful! - Play more than one dominon game at once - Don't want the base set but want to play better boxes like seaside or dark ages :) Things to keep in mind: - There's no real good way to store this! Many expansions don't have any room for these; do your research about the insides of each box and Dominion storage headaches :(.

Summoner Wars: Vanguards Faction Deck (View Game)
Ian Lai

The vanguards are all about healing, and playing defensively. The biggest problem with the vangaurds though, is that the faction deck alone is actually weaker and MUCH harder to play than other faction starters. With the expansion and mercenaries, they're completely fine, but keep this in mind!

Bang! The Bullet (View Game)
Ian Lai

Ahhh Bang. How to best describe it? I think it's like mafia with more built-in game mechanics :) Pros: - Popular, and it appeals to a wide audience. People who wouldn't play other board games might like BANG! and it's very social :) - EVERY game feels different! Cons: - Complicated, so it's hard to teach sometimes. If you want to play BANG! you need to practice explaining rules to people in a way that is both efficient and keeps people interested. - Elimination. A player that dies very early really will not have much fun in this game. It doesn't happen often, but if a player dies in the first few turns (and the game continues long after that) it really is a downer for that dead player :(

Summoner Wars Master Set (View Game)
Ian Lai

Who would like to play summoner wars? Well, here's an idea of what it's like: Fantasy, tactical chess with some random elements in it, and a lot of deck building. I love summoner wars, and I think the best feature of it is how easy it is to get into. There are a lot of war games that force first-time players into feeling like they're doing horribly, but summoner wars really isn't one of them. It also doesn't skimp on any strategy (it's very deep, and only gets deeper with the reinforcement packs!) All of the factions are very balanced and feel VERY different. They all have "I feel awesome moments," which I think is especially important :)

Dominion: Cornucopia Expansion (View Game)
Ian Lai

Ahh, cornucopia. Again, I'm going to write this review as if you already know about Dominion: Cornucopia is a smaller box, and it's theme is variety. I think corcnucopia's a great expansion especially because it introduces a lot of variant strategies. Favorite cards: - Hunting Party - Fair grounds - Young Witch ( a fun curser to play with!) - Horn of Plenty ( some amazing combos with this!) - Menagerie -Jester ( annoying, but cool!) Least favorite cards: - Harvest. This card is actually very bad compared to other 5-cost coins. - Tournament. Many people love it, but I feel like it doesn't really add anything to the game. - Hamlet. This is a GREAT card, but it's really complicated and people take forever to think when they're playing it. I tend to avoid it even though it's awesome.

Dominion Big Box (View Game)
Ian Lai

Dominion big box :) Pros: - Dominion - Prosperity Cons: - Alchemy - Huge Box; better ways to store than the box it comes in :( Dominion is a great game, but I am going to write the rave assuming that you already know about it and want to know if this would be a good deal. I feel like Prosperity + Dominion is the real reason to buy this box, because Alchemy just isn't as good as the some of the other expansions... Prosperity itself brings a ton of fun to the game, by adding platinums and colonies. You can add platinums and colonies to any game to give it a significant twist :)

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