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ReviewsBoard GamesWho Goes There?: The Kotaku Review
You’ve seen The Thing, right? Well this is the board game adaptation. Very serious fans of the movie will already know that of course, since Who Goes There? is the name of John W. Campbell Jr.’s original 1938 novel that the film is based on, but I just wanted to get that clear up top,…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 25, 2021 -
ReviewsBoard GamesPlaying Pandemic Legacy In 2021 Was Not The Best Time
As life in Australia slowly settles back into something resembling normality—at least for now—after everything that happened in 2020, my board game crew have been finding our feet again and getting back into regular sessions. First up for 2021 was a long-overdue run through Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, which…may not have been the best idea.…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 21, 2021 -
ReviewsBoard GamesDune: Imperium: The Kotaku Review
Because the movie business is in a state of absolute chaos right now, the Dune reboot, which was supposed to be the big holiday movie of 2020, is now going to be the big holiday movie of 2021 instead. Just don’t tell this accompanying board game, which went ahead and released in December 2020 anyway.…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 3, 2021 -
ReviewsBoard GamesWestern Empires: The Kotaku Review
Western Empires is a big board game. A very, very, very, very, very big board game. Designed for nine players (though you can go as low as five), and played over the course of around eight hours, it’s the setting for an entire day of expansion, science, trade and battle. You and eight friends/former friends…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 19, 2020 -
ReviewsBoard GamesAssault On Hoth: The Empire Strikes Back: The Kotaku Review
Let’s go back in time. Not to 1980, when Empire Strikes Back came out, that’s too far. We’re going to 1988, when West End Games, a company famous at the time for its RPGs and hardcore wargames, released a two-player board game called Assault on Hoth, which I have just played in 2020 and will…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 20, 2020 -
ReviewsBoard GamesUndaunted: Normandy: The Kotaku Review
Undaunted: Normandy is a World War Two game about combat on a very small scale. While there are loads of WW2 board games, too many to count really, this one somehow manages to find room to stand out from the crowd thanks to its elegant game design and focus on the war’s smallest battles. A…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 4, 2020 -
ReviewsBoard GamesPandemic: Hot Zone – North America Is A Very Timely New Board Game
Boy, talk about bad (or very good) timing. Pandemic: Hot Zone – North America is the newest game in the long-running Pandemic series, a range of best-selling classics that have been entertaining people around the world for years. This latest entry was shown at Toy Fair in February, obviously commenced development a long time before…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 11, 2020 -
ReviewsBoard GamesSonic The Hedgehog: Battle Racers: The Kotaku Review
One of the bright spots of being locked in my house for four weeks (and counting) with my kids is that we have played a lot of board games. One of them, involving a hedgehog and his mates moving rather quickly, that I thought I’d write about here. Sonic the Hedgehog: Battle Racers is, somehow,…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2020 -
ReviewsBoard GamesDune: The Kotaku Review
Dune is an experience so broken I don’t even know where to begin. Except to say it’s the best board game I’ve played in a long time. While coming out in time for a new movie later this year, this isn’t a new game. It’s actually a reprint of a classic, dating all the way…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 20, 2020 -
ReviewsBoard GamesCrusader Kings: The Kotaku Review
Crusader Kings the video game is a massive, unwieldy thing that can’t possibly be crammed into a 2-3 hour board game experience. But developers Free League, bless them, have certainly given it a shot. Crusader Kings the board game tries to take pretty much every key element of Paradox’s grand strategy series—dynastic characters, complex diplomacy,…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 19, 2019 -
ReviewsBoard GamesPipeline: The Kotaku Review
Pipeline is a board game about buying cheap crude, pushing it through loads of pipes then selling it for cash. It’s clean, it’s stressful, and I’m still not 100% sure whether I like it or not. It’s a Euro-style game, which means that it’s abstracted to an extent from its subject matter and interested more…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 15, 2019 -
ReviewsBoard GamesArkham Horror: Final Hour Is A Terrible Introduction To Lovecraftian Board Gaming
I wrote about Mansions of Madness last week, because it’s a great game and I loved every second of it. This week, I’m writing about a different, newer Arkham game from Fantasy Flight, and yikes, this one I don’t like anywhere near as much. Final Hour is a new game that massively strips back the…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 28, 2019 -
ReviewsBoard GamesDetective: City Of Angels: The Kotaku Review
It was raining a hell of a storm outside, windows rattlin’ so hard I thought my teeth were gonna’ shake out. I was halfway through a whisky, thoughts spinnin’, when my office door creaked open. It was her. The dame. The trouble. “Luke,” she said huskily, “I need your help.” Oh. Sorry about that. I…
By Luke Plunkett Published October 9, 2019
