Posted on: February 21, 2011 Posted by: Jesse_Hayges Comments: 0

It wasn’t all that long ago that I was nudged by my significant other to get a code for this board game Neuroshima Hex. I had never heard of it, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I got the game, loaded it up on my iPad, and set down to learn the rules. Side note: this game is a universal binary, so you can load it up on your iPhone too. My first impression of the tutorial video is that it runs way too fast, and really should be broken up into smaller parts, but in the end it did teach me, more or less, the basic mechanics of the game.

The game starts with a hexagonal board with room for a good number of tiles. Your first move is to place your base of operations, this base tile has 20 hit points, and it’s your job to guard it no matter what. The opponent, whether it be a computer or another player will place his as well. As you begin to play, you will be given three tiles into your hand for you to decide what to do with, but first you need to discard one of the three tiles. This has to become a vital part of your strategy. As the game progresses and you learn how to control your army, Battles will crop up. Each battle begins when either the board is completely full, or when a battle tile is placed on the board by either player. The battles commence in phases. Tiles that have higher initiatives go first. Once you get down to zero, it’s time for your bases to fight back.

This game makes chess look like child’s play sometimes. The game has two different modes; quick game, and custom game. The first will randomly assign you an army and a computer opponent. The second of the two will allow you to pick your army, your opponent, and whether or not said opponent is a human or the AI. Also, the custom game allows for more than two players, up to four.

The only major complaint I have is the descriptions of the tiles some times are not as helpful as they could be, and the tutorial is too fast paced. I had a hard time beating the computer on ‘easy’, but this game made me think about strategy in a whole new way. The best compliment I can pay this game is that it now gives me something else to play with my significant other that might spawn a whole new rivalry between us. I do like the other minor touches in this game a lot though. I like the ability to tap on the side bar and have it slide out and give you a pretty in-depth idea of what’s going on at that moment, and I really like the twitter and facebook integration being present. Having Game Center there works nicely as well. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for the next big thing in iOS oriented boardgames.

Game receives an 8 out of 10 possible points.

Leave a Comment