Game Daze Park Place Mall Manager Recommendation, January 2011

Drew -

If you dream of ruling the world through Corporate Takeover, this is the game for you. It’s not complicated to play, but has many complex strategies to take advantage of as you attempt to attain assets of 2 billion dollars and get out of debt.

First I have to say that game looks impressive. The board is nicely laid out with the regions and markets clearly marked and all the companies spread out around the border, so you can see at a glance what companies are out there. The pieces are a nice wood in various colors, though there could have been a FEW more of them, as near the end of the game, you start running out of tokens.

The game mostly involves purchasing companies though auctions and playing various action cards to mess with the other players. Each company gives you so many asset cards each turn and is worth a certain amount of millions, leading, of course, to your attaining 2 billion dollars in assets. You’ll never reach there from owning companies alone, but there are many Power Combinations (monopolies, diversification and such) that add to your perceived assets. Once you attain the goal (and are out of debt), the final rounds begins. Whoever has the most assets after that, wins.

The difficulty comes in that fact that you have a cap on how many assets you receive each turn, no matter how many companies you own, but no cap on expenses you have to pay. So simply collecting companies in and of itself becomes a self-defeating tactic. As mentioned before, certain aspects of each company help you attain the Power Combinations. So it would seem that you need a lot of companies to in order to get enough combinations to win, but collecting those companies keeps you in debt, so you can’t win. That where IPO comes in. If a company is placed in IPO, you get a nice influx of assets, but then you no longer own the company. That means no assets every turn from the company but, on the other hand, no expenses. AND, all companies in IPO can be used by all players to make power combinations. So you can keep your combinations, but don’t have to worry about expenses. On the other hand, putting the wrong companies in IPO means that other players now have access to new power combinations. Plus, if someone has the right card, they can buy an IPO company outright, depriving all the other players of combinations as well. Whew!!!

The game is fun, with lots of corporate wrangling and deal-making. Also, the companies themselves are quite funny with various amusing names like Hammond Swiss Bank, a Turkish mining company called Constant in Opals, and a Dubai based investment firm names Babyloans. As the tagline for the game says, “Serious on the strategy, heavy on the humor”