****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I bought this game because I love London. Yes, that was my true motivation. I love seeing "London" all over the beautiful board and cards! lol.More seriously though, London is a very fun game!! One of our favorites. My nerdy husband and I (I'm not very nerdy) have been pretty into playing these brain-busting board games for about 6 months. Ever since he got back from Afghanistan. We have taken our collection from 1 or 2 board games to over 30. A few of our favorites are Castles of Burgundy, Rialto, Tzolk'in, Dominion, Bora Bora, Thurn and Taxis, Legacy, Seasons, 7 Wonders, Village, Keyflower, Le Havre...(ok, we have a lot of favorites!)...and London. We adore this game. It's fun and engaging for both of us. Pretty easy to learn compared to some of our other favorites. (Please note that it still takes some time to learn just like any of these more in depth board games do!).We have only played 2 player but it is in our constant rotation. Takes roughly 1.5-2 hours. We always thoroughly enjoy it (even with my husband almost always winning). 100% recommend!!A fun game. My non-game-loving significant other will play this with me, and said of it: "we played for almost two hours, and it felt like only 30 minutes!" (and we weren't playing the "two player" variant which goes even faster, either). This is a quick-moving game which has plenty of strategy but doesn't lend itself to over-analysis. It's more of a tableau-building economic card game than a board game; yes, there's a board, and a few other pieces, but you don't ever truly get "blocked" until all of London is purchased.I don't even like card games that much (except for CDG's, card-driven board games) and I think this one's fun. Some may find it to be a little dry, and there are indeed cubes to push around (just one type, poverty), but this is as solid a title as any to branch out into modern gaming from a more 'well-known' collection.Very advanced card game with and endless amount of combos that will earn you victory points. The reason why this game is great is because in order to get ahead you must always take some amount of immediate disadvantage, which can be fixed via end game choices. Played 50+ games and still in me and my friends top 3.I am going to skip the "board game geek" version of this review and just give you the lowdown on the worthiness of this game if you're just looking for a game and are not an expert who actually knows the names of designers and tactical systems and the like. You don't need to know to enjoy the game! It is basically a card-based board game in which you are rebuilding London over the several centuries following the Great London Fire of 1666. You play by having a map of old London and you place cards and tokens strategically to gain the most points and win. Simple!Pros:1. Educational: you learn a little bit about the history of the building of London.2. Strategic: you really have to think and plan ahead to make the best decisions to help increase your point value. The most recently placed cards are not actually applied until later. So you have to pay attention to what is available and when it will be available to utilize.3. A large variety of possible actions based on which cards are placed and when you decide to place your markers.4. High quality board with high quality materials, and the card designs are well-drawn and pleasant to look at.5. Just enough luck to make it so that you don't have to worry about the one really smart board game genius always winning. He or she will just win MOST of the time. LOL! Seriously, you never know what cards will be drawn, so there is always an element of luck involved, but not so much as to make your decisions worthless. Those are my favorite kinds of games, personally.Cons:Lots of tiny, little cubes that are kind of hard to deal with and easily lost. I wish they had come up with some more practical tokens to represent everything.Overall, I highly recommend this game. It is fun for pretty much all ages from 12 years and up. Takes about an hour to play once you get the hang of it. And it's London! Who doesn't love London? :-D
