Robo Rally

Finally played this game. Eric bought it after hearing Kim talk about it. I gotta say, I loved it! In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say I won both games we played. Even had I lost, however, I think I would have still loved the game. The game sounds so simple (draw a set of move cards and play 5 of them to decide where you move) but there are so many things happening on the board that it's almost impossible to play it perfectly.

In our first game, I raced off to a good start but Megan got the (probably OP) Mechanical Arm option and made a very good run at coming back (she nearly tagged the flag one move after I did). In the second game, we had a brutal board that resulted in everyone dying three times except me (I ended up with 8 out of 9 damage on my first life).

The chaos of the game. Yelling at your opponent who pushed you and threw your whole turn off. The times when you're rushing to put down your cards before time expires. The times when you have limited options and you figure out just the right way to move (I can run forward three, hit that wall, left turn, u-turn, backup and the double conveyor belt takes me around the corner to the flag!). All of those things are great.

There are a number of optional rules that seem like fun. There are "Capture the flag" rules that sound like they could be fun as part of some team games. Particularly if you enforce a certain amount of non-talking during movement.

In short, who doesn't like death wielding, laser shooting, insane robots of doom (and they're cute!).