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Max Jamelli
United States
Chambersburg
Pennsylvania
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Now that I've worked my way down from 20 to 1, I'm starting to go up. #21 is Lords of Vegas
Lords of Vegas is one of the newer games on my list. I watch a lot of Tom Vasel's video reviews on youtube, and when I saw the title "Lords of Vegas" I was very intrigued. I think Vegas Showdown is a great game (it's my #5) and I figured the theme may be similar so I gave the video a watch. As it turns out, the video showed me that LoV and VS are really different. I put LoV on my wishlist to keep an eye on it. After continuing to read a little more about it, I pushed it to a 2/love to have.
My dad told me that my mother was looking for something to get me for my birthday this year. He asked for a list of games I might like. I sent him a list that included LoV. Of all the games on the list (I think there were 5 listed alphabetically) Lords of Vegas was the one game I was really hoping for. My dad met up with me at a Central PA Game Club meeting in Harrisburg a few weeks after my birthday and gave me two boxes. I was very pleased to open one and see Lords of Vegas. (the other game is also on the list and we'll get to that one at some point).
I wasn't able to play it for a couple weeks, but when I did I was pleased with how easily we picked it up. I played a 3P game with my dad and brother in law during my sister's annual Memorial Day picnic. I read through the rules for a few minutes and we were off. A lot of the gameplay that I remembered from the video Tom did came back pretty quickly and the player aid cards were big helps. I really liked the way the scoring track works - where you need to score incrementally more points in order to advance on the track. You could score points, but not move on the track for several rounds. It's a mechanic that I think works in this game because it forces you to expand the empire.
I won that first game and spent the next couple weeks trying to convince Jen to learn it. My initial thoughts were that she would really enjoy it if she gave it a shot. The problem is getting her to give games a shot. She finally gave in after I defeated her 5 consecutive times in Attika, I told her we should teach her mom as well. They both agreed and on July 14th I was able to teach them. Well, just as I suspected - they both loved it. In the first game, they each tied with 34 points (I didn't write down what I had, so it must've been low) and Jen's mom won with the most money. In order to capitalize on the game's success we played again the next night - twice. Jen won game 1, Jen's mom won game 2 - again on most money, this time against me. Jen's mom likes to go to casinos and play slots, so it's no surprise she liked this. She picked up on strategies pretty quickly too. She's also a luckier die roller than I am, not that that's saying much though.
I haven't asked Jen to officially rate it yet, but I can bet it's going to be high, probably a 9. I bet her mother would rate it a 9 as well ... although I'd be curious to find out what her mother's favorite game would be.
Final Thoughts
For a game with only 4 plays to be listed this high on my list either says I don't have a ton of experience with a lot of my top 50, or that this is a really good game ... maybe both.
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