What I like most about your channel is that every video gives me the impression that you are secretly recording this at night in your room against your parents permission.
Your video quality and sound has greatly improved from last year. I recently started watching your videos again and the content is bloody good. Thank you for not holding back. So many UA-camrs are fearful of leaving a negative review these days.. my goodness, it's just an opinion. Thanks again for sharing your experiences with these games.
Absolutely fantastic content everytime...i dont usually comment on any videos but you deserve all the admiration that comes your way AWESOME CHANNEL!!!✌️
I really enjoy the wit, and while there are some games not played... its still a 100 game and a lot of people have not played more than 5 modern board games
Love you work, mate. Another great video. If it's in good condition, I'll buy your version of Anachrony. I'll see you in Essen. (Unless a brand new version is there for sale).
Awesome commentary, just love it ! Clinical & brutally honest. Looks like our tastes overlap by 95%. Would hence be keen to get your views on some of the games where I not seen your comments yet (hence I am not sure if you have played them - if so, I would appreciate a hint/link where you commented on them): - The Great Wall - Darwin’s Journey - Scarface 1920 - Expeditions - Pagan: Fate of Roanoke - City of the Great Machine
I definitely recommend getting the revised edition of Agricola and not the original. Yes, it only goes to 4, but there is 5-6 player expansion if you want those higher counts and it makes a lot of other great improvements across the board. I think you meant the Farmers of the Moor expansion as opposed to the All Creatures Great and Small 2-player spinoff, but I highly recommend that expansion as well.
I recently bought Pax Pamir 2, and now I can't wait to see how bad it is. I've only heard good things until now. I will say it's pricey, but I like to collect unique games, sometimes, and the components and rulebook are high quality.
I agree about anachrony. I enjoyed it the first 2 times. However I will die on the pax pamir hill. It is easy to learn, Multiple ways to affect the board game state , shifting allegiances, and love the closed economy. Please send the anusol to 555 pax.
@@VeeeeryyyFaaaastSloooothit’s cringe, you don’t want to see…but here Bollocks actually has a set and will call it out, instead of salivating at his feet. Actually stunning and brave. But for one thing: Lang wants roughly half of the population to be exterminated. And wouldn’t you guess, it’s anyone that disagrees with him.
Call of Cthulhu is a great TTRPG. Just know that it's about normal people facing unprecedented horrors and forces beyond understanding. My players who are used to playing DnD were very surprised (even after multiple warnings before we started) when half the party was dead after an encounter with "just cultists".
Interesting what you said about Lacerda (simple mechanic drowned in the unnecessary complexity and samey, I partially agree as the man himself will probably die if he tries to create anything else besides worker placement) but Uwe gets a pass even though he basically makes the same game on multiple occasions (with some small tweaks, e.g. Agricola -> Caverna -> Fields of Arle, majority of his tile laying games are very similar). Art in FCM is actually miles better than the old Bus or Antiquity and they hired Jan Lipinski to do art deco again for Horseless Carriage. Chits are flimsy and cheap, but the art is very readable and completely fits the theme (as does in HC). Great Western Trail is a masterpiece in simplicity and strategy and offers way more than casual gamers are willing to invest. It's on the same level as Barrage.
Glad to hear someone hates Pax Pamir. Also love the unexpected Marvel FASERIP shout out! Great supers game. I will have to look into Mage Knight sometime.
Ah I love me some Mansions of Madness 2nd ed. Also FASERIP's fixed damage was weak and the combat chart where Spiderman's best dodge still left someone with feeble agility shooting him 33% of the time. Great books for FASERIP though. Champions 4e was king back then though.
I love BGBs videos. Doesn't give two shites about what others think and speaks his mind... much of what I agree with. Except Pax Pamir 2e - love that game... but I find it hilarious that he voices his opinions with no filter!
I think the version of Viticulture you speak of is the one with the Tuscany expansion added because you mention the four seasons on the board that you go through. I believe the original board doesn't have the full 4 seasons.
Thank you for the review, it's interesting and entertaining as always. But I just can't help suggesting one thing: I sincerely believe that you should take this nuisance of a game called Barrage and stick it up the same location, where the ingenious Pax Pamir should go, according to your respected opinion.
I agree to disagree about à lot of games. (Pax pamir and barrage in particular). But refreshing to hear opinions contrary to mine. And subscribe to many of your conclusions.
Weird that Cascadia is expensive there. Not the case here. It’s a solid game that plays fast and keeps your attention on other’s turns. I think you’d like it, but I also would be entertained if you called it dogshit.
The repeated description of Lacerda designs as "simple core actions branching off into many flowchart-like possibilities within possibilities" doesn't make any sense to me. Not that many things can happen in those small and boring 'worlds', and still fewer even will happen when you and your playing partners know what you're doing. Lacerda always has been a hack.
You're good at talking bollocks! Fair play. Top drawer. I hate it when people say "Top Draw". Anyway. Looking forward to the next pile of shit that you drag up! Cheers!
Entertaining as always, even though as you say, a list like this is "inane." Of course it is, and I'll watch to the very end, because it's excellent. For the the third time around (original review, 10 shitty games, this list) you're way, WAY off with the masterpiece that is Pax Pamir. However, don't bother sending the hemorrhoid cream. But thank you. 😄
Odd that Great Western Trail is the only game with no score that you still had actually played and could talk about. Honestly, it was so long and so dull that I sold it off pretty quickly after buying it. The deck building aspect felt out of place rather than giving it depth for me. Too many bits and I didn’t feel it cohered very well.
Hello from Chicago. Regardless if your opinions align with mine, I still find your assessments hysterical. This channel is about as woke as a Dirty Harry movie marathon.
I’d love to see a top 10 wokest board games (or something of the sort). The way you call out publishers / designers for their progressive crap shoehorned into these games is both refreshing and hilarious. If you won’t do it, no one will!
Nice countdown again. You are missing out however on Too Many Bones. It's a fantastic game. Lots of expansions, they are mainly additional characters but lots of gameplay in the main box.
Worth listening to, for your edgy Bon’s mots, but I like rubbernecking car crashes too. The SOS top 100 is a tedious popularity contest for the current euro paradigm, fixed - I mean moderated - by heavy handed Bayesian and secret sauce, and is not worth contemplating at this length.
Cascadia is a boring multiplayer solitaire. It is a crowd pleaser for the masses, but not great for anyone that plays lots of board games. You should try Kanban. It is quite good, but it does take a bit to learn. And it still took me around 3 plays to come to grips with how to actually play it well. But it has one of the best and meanest worker placement mechanisms ever. Start with just two players and the game can go quite fast.
Maracaibo was a pure clone of Great Western Trail for me. There was a thin layer on top (country influence) but otherwise it's just GWT with a bazillion hours longer set up time.
Maracaibo has been seen on sale (and 2nd hand) in the last 2-3 years. It shouldn't be expensive to give it a go. Agree that Mansions of Madness doesn't offer much decision making for players. Fine if you like the 'on rails' storytelling that builds to a cinematic climax, but not for me. The gameplay is not what you'd but the game for. Yes Carooka appeals much more than Crokinole, but more BGG users in the US/Canada than UK! Cascadia decent - easy to teach/learn and fast to play, with a decent spatial puzzle challenge, that ramps up quickly with the later objective cards. I find it more enjoyable than Calico. Marvel Champions seems suited to people who a) love the theme and b) love investing lots of time and money to build effective/clever decks. Not something I'd recommend for a casual co-op.
I own Marvel champions and Sleeping gods, but if I owned all these games, I'd probably have a giant bonfire. I don't know if wingspan is on the past list, but I would never ever let anyone past the threshold of my door with it, it would be as welcome as a middle aged feminist with hairy arm pits, sitting on a high horse.
I'm a very liberal guy, the Daily Mail would call me "woke", and yet I can't see why a game like Puerto Rico would feel the need to tone down controversial elements when there are plenty of games on the market where you can play as Nazi Germany, colonial Americans, plagues, Aliens who are trying to wipe out humanity, and so on. You can literally play Adolf Hitler in the game "Secret Hitler". Yes, colonialism, plantations, slavery, and the destruction and abuse of indigenous people were all terrible - but that doesn't make a board game depicting them inherently terrible??
There is always a grey area that the extremists on both sides gloss over. I'd add to your list Roman colonisation, Viking pillaging, industrial revolution exploitation of workers in the Brass Birmingham/Lancashire era. FWIW my partner is Maori, so colonisation as a subject matter is not something I'd feel acceptable to have in a game that I own / in our house. Would I play such a game myself, at a board game night? Yes, though depending on how that theme is implemented, in a rare few cases I might excuse myself from playing it. Often the discomfort is when we are asked to play the role of the abuser / exploiter. Personally, despite it being very abstract, I don't enjoy the theme of Secret Hitler, and for me that's on the grounds it rather trivialises him, but also (on both occasions I've played) has us taking the role of him or a member of his party. I still played the game, but felt uncomfortable doing so. Conversely I suspect I'd be happier playing Black Orchestra, and ditto war games which typically focus on the mechanics of the war, rather than representing the party that committed atrocities. It's a dividing line that's debatable for sure, but that's how it is for me. It's in the question of whether we are playing / lauding the exploitation that Puerto Rico's criticism is more subjective. Whether the designers consciously adapted the workers from slaves to 'colonists', yet at the same time left the meeple colour as brown? Only they will know. I see why people might associate brown with the slaves working on plantations, and the business we're asked to 'run' was for sure exploitative, but that might also be an entirely innocent choice of neutral colour (given that black, white, grey and brown are what I'd think of as neutral colours, so not huge choice). Acknowledging that it can be viewed as looking bad is absolutely sensible, but stridently insisting that it's racist and clearly represents the exploitation of african slaves risks overstretching. How about Maracaibo, which also came in for criticism? That feels more of an overstretch, as the core of the theme centres around the role of privateers / pirates in the Caribbean, something that has been extensively romanticised by Hollywood, so is clearly a ripe subject for board games. In short, it's time we stopped thinking in the simplistic binary terms of the activists / extremists, and instead engage our own critical reasoning. We'll come to much more level-headed / considered conclusions than if we merely align with or oppose the activists/extremists.
@iansutton7416 Simple action is not to play a game that you feel isn’t a match for you and your group. I have a sterile personality so I’ll play pretty much anything regardless of its theme. I have a game about poo falling into the toilet ffs
They certainly err towards low-conflict, low-interactivity Euro games, whatever their age. Take the venerable Advanced Squad Leader... barely cracks the top 500, yet is still in the top 20 wargames lists on BGG. Top 100 is definitely a popularity contest that skews towards the new, and games for old grognards aren't the "in" thing, I guess. Unless you replace the troops with cute, furry animals... and then you've got "Root" (secretly a wargame based on the COIN series) in the top 30 list. We can probably look forward to this channel tearing that game a new one in the next video.
TSR Marvel superheroes is one of the BEST Roleplaying games EVER! Still have my basic and advanced editions! Played it last month with a couple of mates it still gives me a thrill!
One of the best personalities on UA-cam, let alone in the board game space. Well done sir.
You read my mind
🤣. Matt,s a right cnt m8
I recently stumbled upon your channel and I'm extremely happy that someone else has the same opinions on games as I do. Thank you!
You’re welcome mate
What I like most about your channel is that every video gives me the impression that you are secretly recording this at night in your room against your parents permission.
... in his bedroom closet with the door closed
I’m most definitely not in the closet
@@BoardGameBollocksthat's exactly what someone in the closet would say!
How do you know?
That bit about Underwater Cities was so out of left field I spat my coffee out and chuckled for good ten seconds. Well done sir
That pax pamir review was absolutely brutal and hilarious, well played.
one of his best
Your video quality and sound has greatly improved from last year. I recently started watching your videos again and the content is bloody good. Thank you for not holding back. So many UA-camrs are fearful of leaving a negative review these days.. my goodness, it's just an opinion. Thanks again for sharing your experiences with these games.
I absolutely LOVE your content and yet couldn't have more different tastes in games! Keep up the extraordinary content.
👍🏻
Absolutely fantastic content everytime...i dont usually comment on any videos but you deserve all the admiration that comes your way AWESOME CHANNEL!!!✌️
I love this channel. I can never tell what on Earth your gonna say that catches me off guard and sets me off laughing.
Love this series, and especially love the jabs at Eric Lang
It's hysterical.
This is why you are one of the best in the hobby, blunt and honest. Don't stop calling shite when you see it.
Your videos are hilarious. Most of the boardgame internet community is sickly saccharin sweet. Nice to see some content with a bit of bite!
Glad to hear your mum's branching out.. give her my love😊
The most entertained I've been in ages. Thanks!
Word up!
Loving it mate! Always entertaining and spot on! Keen to grab a copy of Barrage. Cheers from NZ
Guess i missed the other videos of this list, i'll go watch.
I feel you'd do a great movie critique channel as well, Movie Bollocks.
Now there’s a thought…
@@BoardGameBollocks especially as I feel the same about Marvel, I'd prefer to shit in my hands and clap than watch or play anything Marvel.
Im glad you liked power grid. One of my favorite games.
Awesome stuff. Great antidote to the hype peddlers that make up all other Board game channels. I will take that anusol, grape flavored if possible...
I really enjoy the wit, and while there are some games not played... its still a 100 game and a lot of people have not played more than 5 modern board games
Love you work, mate. Another great video.
If it's in good condition, I'll buy your version of Anachrony. I'll see you in Essen. (Unless a brand new version is there for sale).
What’s Essen?
@@BoardGameBollocks ha funny
This video cured my hemorroids, now what am I to do with all the ointments I've got?!?!?
Awesome commentary, just love it ! Clinical & brutally honest. Looks like our tastes overlap by 95%. Would hence be keen to get your views on some of the games where I not seen your comments yet (hence I am not sure if you have played them - if so, I would appreciate a hint/link where you commented on them):
- The Great Wall
- Darwin’s Journey
- Scarface 1920
- Expeditions
- Pagan: Fate of Roanoke
- City of the Great Machine
Not played any of those I’m afraid
I like the tone you use when you speak about libralls. See what we have to do, we have to spell wrong, just to get psat eht Zensorse.
The board game Lisboa is about the reconstruction of Lisboa after the great earthquake of 1755. That was a significant historical event.
I definitely recommend getting the revised edition of Agricola and not the original. Yes, it only goes to 4, but there is 5-6 player expansion if you want those higher counts and it makes a lot of other great improvements across the board. I think you meant the Farmers of the Moor expansion as opposed to the All Creatures Great and Small 2-player spinoff, but I highly recommend that expansion as well.
I can already imagine your worst nightmare: Pax Pamir with Birds 😂
That might fix it 😂
Star Wars, Marvel, Eric Lang…I’m done with all this same old trash! Love the channel!
if I only had the ppl to play all the fantastic campaign driven boardgames.
I'd love to try Tainted Grail, Frosthaven, Gloomhaven etc
I quite like these. I may not agree with everything, but what would be the fun in that?
👍🏻
Man, if I would ever meet you at some game convention and said "hi", if you wouldn't told me to piss off, I'd be genuinely disappointed.
We recently picked up Pandemic Rome and we were bored pretty quickly
I recently bought Pax Pamir 2, and now I can't wait to see how bad it is. I've only heard good things until now. I will say it's pricey, but I like to collect unique games, sometimes, and the components and rulebook are high quality.
Don't worry, it's a fantastic game. Don't listen to that load of bollocks. ;)
Interestingly, Pfister's mum was a nun. Yes, she was Sister Pfister.
😂
Fact?
I agree about anachrony. I enjoyed it the first 2 times. However I will die on the pax pamir hill. It is easy to learn, Multiple ways to affect the board game state , shifting allegiances, and love the closed economy. Please send the anusol to 555 pax.
The bit about Eric Lang got a good chuckle out of me.
What was that about? I'm avoiding Twitter...
@@VeeeeryyyFaaaastSloooothit’s cringe, you don’t want to see…but here Bollocks actually has a set and will call it out, instead of salivating at his feet. Actually stunning and brave.
But for one thing: Lang wants roughly half of the population to be exterminated. And wouldn’t you guess, it’s anyone that disagrees with him.
Anybody knows if the call of Cthulhu RPG gives a better feel to that mythos compared to Mansions of Madness?? Great vid as always.
Call of Cthulhu is a great TTRPG. Just know that it's about normal people facing unprecedented horrors and forces beyond understanding. My players who are used to playing DnD were very surprised (even after multiple warnings before we started) when half the party was dead after an encounter with "just cultists".
I played it in the 80s so I’m not up to speed on CoC I’m afraid
You should try the Fractures of Time expansion for Anachrony. Makes the game much more interesting.
Fish fingers, chips n beans 7 days in a row 😂
What is BGG?
Fucking laugh a minute mate.
I always owe my dealer money...
Cascadia is a fun game, its on the lighter side, but everyone we have played it with seems to like it.
Keep meaning to pick it up but with shipping it’s over £30 here…
Maracaibo is very good, try it!
Love the shirt!
Interesting what you said about Lacerda (simple mechanic drowned in the unnecessary complexity and samey, I partially agree as the man himself will probably die if he tries to create anything else besides worker placement) but Uwe gets a pass even though he basically makes the same game on multiple occasions (with some small tweaks, e.g. Agricola -> Caverna -> Fields of Arle, majority of his tile laying games are very similar). Art in FCM is actually miles better than the old Bus or Antiquity and they hired Jan Lipinski to do art deco again for Horseless Carriage. Chits are flimsy and cheap, but the art is very readable and completely fits the theme (as does in HC). Great Western Trail is a masterpiece in simplicity and strategy and offers way more than casual gamers are willing to invest. It's on the same level as Barrage.
Love underwater cities!
Glad to hear someone hates Pax Pamir.
Also love the unexpected Marvel FASERIP shout out! Great supers game.
I will have to look into Mage Knight sometime.
How many people who bought Frosthaven, finished gloomhaven?
Finished Jaws of the Lion twice and it was so much better than original Gloomhaven that I became convinced Frosthaven must be better too. We'll see.
If guy Ritchie directed board game reviews
Ah I love me some Mansions of Madness 2nd ed. Also FASERIP's fixed damage was weak and the combat chart where Spiderman's best dodge still left someone with feeble agility shooting him 33% of the time. Great books for FASERIP though. Champions 4e was king back then though.
Unlike a certain Tweeting bed-wetter, I still loved the video even though you despise one of my favorite Pax games.
I love BGBs videos. Doesn't give two shites about what others think and speaks his mind... much of what I agree with. Except Pax Pamir 2e - love that game... but I find it hilarious that he voices his opinions with no filter!
I think the version of Viticulture you speak of is the one with the Tuscany expansion added because you mention the four seasons on the board that you go through. I believe the original board doesn't have the full 4 seasons.
yes, just 2 seasons. The 4 seasons felt a very good improvement, avoiding some of the more frustrating restrictions.
Thank you for the review, it's interesting and entertaining as always. But I just can't help suggesting one thing: I sincerely believe that you should take this nuisance of a game called Barrage and stick it up the same location, where the ingenious Pax Pamir should go, according to your respected opinion.
I agree to disagree about à lot of games. (Pax pamir and barrage in particular). But refreshing to hear opinions contrary to mine. And subscribe to many of your conclusions.
Personally I don't care about Marvel too, yet the game is great, love playing it. Worth to try it!
Totally agree with you on Mage Knight. Best solo game ever, of course. But, for me, best game PPPERIOD with three big capital Ps.
Weird that Cascadia is expensive there. Not the case here. It’s a solid game that plays fast and keeps your attention on other’s turns. I think you’d like it, but I also would be entertained if you called it dogshit.
You are right about everything. I have full confidence in your reviews. Screw bgg.
It's hilarious when he hates a game. I think Pax Pamir 2e is one of the best board game designs out there lol
I laugh everytime i see your videos
In all actuality, from what I see..you would enjoy Underwater Cities despite all the problems getting there...
The repeated description of Lacerda designs as "simple core actions branching off into many flowchart-like possibilities within possibilities" doesn't make any sense to me. Not that many things can happen in those small and boring 'worlds', and still fewer even will happen when you and your playing partners know what you're doing. Lacerda always has been a hack.
Eric Lang is an utter 🔔 end
You're good at talking bollocks! Fair play. Top drawer. I hate it when people say "Top Draw". Anyway. Looking forward to the next pile of shit that you drag up! Cheers!
Alexamnder Fister?! OMG
You said it not me 😂
Entertaining as always, even though as you say, a list like this is "inane." Of course it is, and I'll watch to the very end, because it's excellent. For the the third time around (original review, 10 shitty games, this list) you're way, WAY off with the masterpiece that is Pax Pamir. However, don't bother sending the hemorrhoid cream. But thank you. 😄
Odd that Great Western Trail is the only game with no score that you still had actually played and could talk about. Honestly, it was so long and so dull that I sold it off pretty quickly after buying it. The deck building aspect felt out of place rather than giving it depth for me. Too many bits and I didn’t feel it cohered very well.
I wasn't clear, did you enjoy pax pamir 2nd Ed? Don't sit on the fence
I used the mat as a dishcloth
Cascadia is something I would play with my non gamer wife. It’s ok for what it is but if wife isn’t going to play with me then it’s going away.
Hilarious as usual. The Everdell theme makes me gag. Gimme something beige like Orleans any day.
Hello from Chicago. Regardless if your opinions align with mine, I still find your assessments hysterical. This channel is about as woke as a Dirty Harry movie marathon.
The Porno?
@@BoardGameBollocks either or.
I’d love to see a top 10 wokest board games (or something of the sort). The way you call out publishers / designers for their progressive crap shoehorned into these games is both refreshing and hilarious. If you won’t do it, no one will!
My hope is that this chap is happy calling out the snowflakes on the left and right. Jokers to the left of me, jokers to the right.
The Village reprint springs to mind. Absolute trash.
@@UmarAhmed2009 I’ll always laugh at a joker! Lol
@docbeasty agreed! Love it
Priceless😂😂😂
"Alexander FISTER" hahaha
Nice countdown again. You are missing out however on Too Many Bones. It's a fantastic game. Lots of expansions, they are mainly additional characters but lots of gameplay in the main box.
Don't bother with Maracaibo it's a dud of a game. Was waiting the whole game for it to be over.
Worth listening to, for your edgy Bon’s mots, but I like rubbernecking car crashes too.
The SOS top 100 is a tedious popularity contest for the current euro paradigm, fixed - I mean moderated - by heavy handed Bayesian and secret sauce, and is not worth contemplating at this length.
Obviously still disagree with your view on Pax Pamir 2nd ed; but no, no hemorrhoids lol :p
Laughing my balls off
Cheers mate
Cascadia is a boring multiplayer solitaire. It is a crowd pleaser for the masses, but not great for anyone that plays lots of board games.
You should try Kanban. It is quite good, but it does take a bit to learn. And it still took me around 3 plays to come to grips with how to actually play it well. But it has one of the best and meanest worker placement mechanisms ever. Start with just two players and the game can go quite fast.
Maracaibo was a pure clone of Great Western Trail for me. There was a thin layer on top (country influence) but otherwise it's just GWT with a bazillion hours longer set up time.
Been thinking the sam, as with the previous video, that how the hell these games ended up being in top 100. Its just beyond me.
"Think more about what you take out of the box than what you put in the box" - FUCK YES.
Stole that from Nietzsche…honest
Really enjoyed this and, sadly, agree with you on Everdell. I want it to be a 9 out of 10, but it's not. Maybe an expansion will fix that.
❤
EV = enhanced version? Either way, your description is better. Extra va... (censored)
Maracaibo has been seen on sale (and 2nd hand) in the last 2-3 years. It shouldn't be expensive to give it a go.
Agree that Mansions of Madness doesn't offer much decision making for players. Fine if you like the 'on rails' storytelling that builds to a cinematic climax, but not for me. The gameplay is not what you'd but the game for.
Yes Carooka appeals much more than Crokinole, but more BGG users in the US/Canada than UK!
Cascadia decent - easy to teach/learn and fast to play, with a decent spatial puzzle challenge, that ramps up quickly with the later objective cards. I find it more enjoyable than Calico.
Marvel Champions seems suited to people who a) love the theme and b) love investing lots of time and money to build effective/clever decks. Not something I'd recommend for a casual co-op.
Yeah I stumbled on Eric Langs Twitter and I have since been strangely way less interested in playing his games…
yeah he comes off as a major twat
Says more about you than Eric to be honest.
Nice to meet you Mr Lang! I love Arcadia Quest@@noreasternbrewmaster8705
I still play his games regardless of him being a dick on X
same@@BoardGameBollocks
Mage knight is incredible, but our games always go over 10 hours, it's that the same for you? The crew is fucking amazing btw.
I own Marvel champions and Sleeping gods, but if I owned all these games, I'd probably have a giant bonfire. I don't know if wingspan is on the past list, but I would never ever let anyone past the threshold of my door with it, it would be as welcome as a middle aged feminist with hairy arm pits, sitting on a high horse.
Heh, Pfist.
I'm a very liberal guy, the Daily Mail would call me "woke", and yet I can't see why a game like Puerto Rico would feel the need to tone down controversial elements when there are plenty of games on the market where you can play as Nazi Germany, colonial Americans, plagues, Aliens who are trying to wipe out humanity, and so on. You can literally play Adolf Hitler in the game "Secret Hitler". Yes, colonialism, plantations, slavery, and the destruction and abuse of indigenous people were all terrible - but that doesn't make a board game depicting them inherently terrible??
There is always a grey area that the extremists on both sides gloss over. I'd add to your list Roman colonisation, Viking pillaging, industrial revolution exploitation of workers in the Brass Birmingham/Lancashire era.
FWIW my partner is Maori, so colonisation as a subject matter is not something I'd feel acceptable to have in a game that I own / in our house. Would I play such a game myself, at a board game night? Yes, though depending on how that theme is implemented, in a rare few cases I might excuse myself from playing it.
Often the discomfort is when we are asked to play the role of the abuser / exploiter. Personally, despite it being very abstract, I don't enjoy the theme of Secret Hitler, and for me that's on the grounds it rather trivialises him, but also (on both occasions I've played) has us taking the role of him or a member of his party. I still played the game, but felt uncomfortable doing so. Conversely I suspect I'd be happier playing Black Orchestra, and ditto war games which typically focus on the mechanics of the war, rather than representing the party that committed atrocities. It's a dividing line that's debatable for sure, but that's how it is for me.
It's in the question of whether we are playing / lauding the exploitation that Puerto Rico's criticism is more subjective. Whether the designers consciously adapted the workers from slaves to 'colonists', yet at the same time left the meeple colour as brown? Only they will know. I see why people might associate brown with the slaves working on plantations, and the business we're asked to 'run' was for sure exploitative, but that might also be an entirely innocent choice of neutral colour (given that black, white, grey and brown are what I'd think of as neutral colours, so not huge choice). Acknowledging that it can be viewed as looking bad is absolutely sensible, but stridently insisting that it's racist and clearly represents the exploitation of african slaves risks overstretching.
How about Maracaibo, which also came in for criticism? That feels more of an overstretch, as the core of the theme centres around the role of privateers / pirates in the Caribbean, something that has been extensively romanticised by Hollywood, so is clearly a ripe subject for board games.
In short, it's time we stopped thinking in the simplistic binary terms of the activists / extremists, and instead engage our own critical reasoning. We'll come to much more level-headed / considered conclusions than if we merely align with or oppose the activists/extremists.
@iansutton7416 Simple action is not to play a game that you feel isn’t a match for you and your group. I have a sterile personality so I’ll play pretty much anything regardless of its theme. I have a game about poo falling into the toilet ffs
the people that make these lists, are they like under 30? Where are the avalon hill classics like Squad Leader, or are these just NEW games?
They certainly err towards low-conflict, low-interactivity Euro games, whatever their age. Take the venerable Advanced Squad Leader... barely cracks the top 500, yet is still in the top 20 wargames lists on BGG. Top 100 is definitely a popularity contest that skews towards the new, and games for old grognards aren't the "in" thing, I guess. Unless you replace the troops with cute, furry animals... and then you've got "Root" (secretly a wargame based on the COIN series) in the top 30 list. We can probably look forward to this channel tearing that game a new one in the next video.
TSR Marvel superheroes is one of the BEST Roleplaying games EVER! Still have my basic and advanced editions! Played it last month with a couple of mates it still gives me a thrill!