Review
New Angeles
New Angeles makes a rough first impression, and its rulebooks do not make that first contact any smoother. Our opening game collapsed early, but it left me wanting another go rather than an excuse to pack it away.
- Published
- 2016
- Designer
- James Kniffen
- Publisher
- Fantasy Flight Games, asmodee, Asterion Press
- Players
- 4–6
- Playing time
- 240 min
We had been looking forward to New Angeles, and then it greeted us by making the whole table wonder who had handed the city a box of matches. It needs two or three plays before you properly know what is happening; on our first attempt, small mistakes and rather less small ones piled up quickly.
The game moves through rounds with the condition of the city sitting there as the thing nobody can safely ignore. In our first game, New Angeles collapsed in the third round, having collected every available disaster while we were still working out which decisions actually mattered.
The rulebook gets a plain D.
TheCuttlefish
Meanwhile, NBN's assets looked powerful enough to eat a wildly disproportionate share of our attention. Perhaps that is the game’s real balance; perhaps it was simply what happens when you are learning from a split learn-to-play and reference system written as though it were a card game. The rulebook gets a plain D.
I am not ready to decide whether New Angeles is a dud. I am ready to return to a collapsed city, a rulebook that kept kicking our ankles, and the rather clear prospect of knowing exactly whom we are ruining next time.
I am ready to return to a collapsed city, a rulebook that kept kicking our ankles, and the rather clear prospect of knowing exactly whom we are ruining next time.
TheCuttlefish
Source: BoardGameGeek
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