If there’s one thing I like, it’s a game based on a goofy premise. Lucky for me, there are games like The Great Brain Robbery from Cheapass Games out there. In a nutshell, this game is about zombies in the old west, robbing a passenger train full of government cheese in search of sweet, sweet brains. If it sounds like a pretty silly game . . . well, that’s because it is. This is not a terribly deep or complex game, but it is a fun game when you’ve got a group of like-minded friends around.

In The Great Brain Robbery, each player controls a zombie on the train. You start with a single card, which represents either a brain or a type of government cheese (both of which can be put into your head). Each turn, you wander around and land on brain tokens; when you do so, you keep the token and you draw another card. Each brain card has a Cost, Hit and Run stats, and an IQ. Cost indicates how many brain tokens (or experience points, or whatever) you have to pay to install the brain into your head. Hit and Run act as modifiers when you attack or move, respectively, and IQ helps you win the game. Now, you can only hold two brains at once, and if you don’t have anything in your head, you get serious fighting and moving penalties for holding cards in your hand. This is where cheese comes in handy: it can be installed for free, and while it doesn’t give you much in the way of bonuses and has no IQ (you can’t win with cheese in your head), it does eliminate the aforementioned penalties. Now, as you wander from car to car on this train, cars further back have a chance of falling off, leaving some zombies running to catch the train (dropping any cards in their hand along the way). In addition, you can fight other zombies in order to take the brains right out of their head. Once you get to the engine car and put on the breaks, the game effectively ends, and the zombie with the highest IQ wins. There’s a little more to the game than that, but not that much.

The Great Brain Robbery is a lot of fun to play, period. There is some strategy involved, though there’s also a lot of luck. In the beginning of the game, players tend to shop around for a good brain (or a good starter brain) and collect tokens. Sooner or later, though, someone’s going to amass a pile of tokens and take off for the engine car, probably with a pretty smart brain in hand (and a starter brain or cheese in head). Once this happens, players tend to race after the leader, ganging up and tying to beat his lead so they can be the one who decides when the game ends. A typical game lasts 30-45 minutes, though I have played games that lasted only 15, due to the engine car being drawn early.

What I Liked: The Great Brain Robbery is fun; there, I’ve said it a third time. It’s got a goofy premise that appeals to me, it has simple mechanics that work fairly well, and it tends to generate some laughs around the table. While this is definitely a Cheapass game, the artwork is very good and suits the game well, and the cards and board do the job they intend to. The Great Brain Robbery, like all Cheapass games, is also very good value for money. I paid $7.50 for it at Funagain, and I feel like I’ve easily gotten my money’s worth out of it.

What I Didn’t Like: Not a whole lot. Luck can be a deciding factor in the game; I’ve seen a player lose simply because he got a run of bad luck in the beginning and never really caught up. I’ve also seen someone win simply because she happened to pull the engine car at the right time. Some people may not like that much, but it doesn’t bother me a lot in a game this light. Also, as a Cheapass game, it doesn’t come with everything you need to play. The game includes rules, the board, and the cards. You need to supply your own dice, pawns, and brain counters. This may turn people off; however, I find it to be an advantage. It keeps the cost of the game way down, and the pieces not included are easy to find. Six-sided dice are virtually ubiquitous in board games, you can use just about anything as a pawn, and pennies make a good, cost-effective brain counter.

The Bottome Line: The Great Brain Robbery is a fun, light game with a low, low cost. Unless something about it really turns you off, you don’t have many excuses not to buy it.

Thanks for a great review on a great game!! I love this game, it is alot of fun!!! I like the randomness off it, there is a lot of chance for one player to run away with it, but they get gained up on too, so this is great. You forgot my favorite part, the fact that your opponent can fall off the train!! This is hilarious to me. I fell off in one game and ended up giving up a great brain, but I was able to pull a better one later.