Game Review

Concept:

It's the French Revolution. You get points for each noble's head that you collect -- change the order of the nobles to make sure that you get better heads than your opponents.

Gameplay:

There are two decks of cards in this game. A deck of "Nobles" and a deck of action cards. To begin, each player is dealt five action cards. The top 12 Nobles from the Noble deck are displayed in order at the center of the table.

The game plays over three "days." Each day is another set of 12 nobles from the noble deck. After the third day points are tallied.

A player's turn is fairly simple. In order: play an action card, collect the first noble in line, then draw an action card. When the last noble in line is taken, the day ends.

Some noble cards have special rules which will cause some players to be unable to play an action card. These appear occasionally, and ensuring that they affect your opponent is usually the best strategy.

Winning Conditions:

• The player who has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Our Opinion:

The Zombies who reviewed this game enjoyed it, but had a few reservations about it.

When you read the rules -- they are exceptionally simple. On reading the rules without playing, one Zombie commented that it looked like Family Business without the opportunity to steal a turn. Once we played it, we saw a distinct difference from that description. This game wasn't as good as Family Business, but it was a good game on its own.

Of the drawbacks of the game, one of the Zombies thought that the theme was too gory and gruesome for him to allow his kids to play this before they had studied the French Revolution in school -- and were at least 13. There are action cards like "Fountain of Blood" and a noble called "Piss Boy" that he found particularly hard to justify in a family game. The artwork for the game looks Disney-esque (think "Beauty and the Beast") which seems to water down the fact that the Nobles are being killed in the game. Gameplay wise, there is no way to interrupt another player when it isn't your turn. This isn't altogether bad, but it makes the game a little less entertaining sometimes. Finally, some action cards are hard to find a good time to play -- literally, you have too many actions to be able to play all of your cards, so some cards don't feel like they'd ever be used.

Drawbacks aside, the game played fast and cleanly. We thought that with a good sized group who were all very competitive, this game could be a lot of fun. To really enjoy this game, you have to work at messing with the other players.

The game was about $5 when we found it -- that's certainly a great price for a game. Don't pay much more than that -- it's not big on intellectual strategy, but it is a decent party game.

Where to buy:

Any local game store -- Our copy was cost about $5.