Stephenson’s Rocket
March 3rd, 2006Last week Rob came over and we tried my borrowed copy of Stephenson’s Rocket.
I have wanted to try this for years. When I started gaming again, the first reviews website I came to was The Game Report. The web was a very different place only five or six years ago, and there was nowhere else with such well-written and organised reviews.
Peter Sarrett wrote a very complimentary review, which really piqued my interest. The only thing that prevented me from getting my debit card out was that it got really conflicting comments with some, like Bruno Faidutti, disliking the complex scoring. The fact that it hardly got mentioned again reassured me that I had done the right thing.
After finally playing it, I have to agree that I am in the “disliking the convoluted scoring” camp. The theme of railways was redundant and the gameplay was just too dry. It is too clever for it’s own good. Maybe next time I should play with more players or someone without a Maths degree? I might enjoy it more…
4/10 – I might be persuaded to try it again.
March 6th, 2006 at 21:50
It has been a while but I enjoy this game; perhaps it is down to the number of players because four is the only number we’ve played this game with.
March 6th, 2006 at 22:43
I am sure it is more fun with more. I just felt there are other games that do the same job more elegantly.
April 11th, 2006 at 23:46
Funny, I didn’t think the scoring was that convoluted. It’s an area-majorities game with lots of areas. Not so bad. The systems are a little convoluted and anti-intuitive, sort of like Acquire, but for many people the fun of games is working out how all the systems interact, and compared to some recent games like Il Principe or anything from Colovini or Schacht, this really isn’t bad.
What got me about Stephenson’s Rocket was the fact that it’s the only big-box Knizia game I can think of off the top of my head where the game systems appear significantly unbalanced. There is no reasonable strategy that involves taking goods disks outside of very unusual situations. I win this game all the time. Every time I play I start by warning people, “I’ve never seen anyone do well taking goods disks”, but they always take them anyway, I never do, and I always win.
April 12th, 2006 at 15:52
I suppose the point is that I found it too counter-intuitive and abstract. As I said before, it is too clever for it’s own good, like Damien Hirst, Jean-Paul Gautier or Beck.
Not sure about the lack of balance. It’s a pity there isn’t a pbw or pbem interface so someone can prove you wrong.
I’d kibitz that one.