Burgle Bros 2 Review - A Safe Bet?

[Music] [Applause] okay people today we have a heist on our hands you might be aware of a game called burgle bros a three-floor heist where you and your friends take the role of a crack team of burglars trying to get in get out and steal the loot and each of those floors has a guard a guard that will make your lives very difficult by following any of the noise that you make and you'll be making that noise constantly because every room is packed to the brim with dangerous traps but by manipulating patrol patterns and using your vast suite of abilities you might be able to slip by relatively unnoticed pull out that juicy bit of treasure from the safe intel from our man on the inside mr matt les is that right intel suggests that this was a good time that its strengths were in its slapstick its leanings towards emergent narrative its unpredictability and the crunch that seeps from every minute this was a fine set of characteristics which brings us on to our next topic they did it again it was three floors now it's just two it was a facility now it's a casino it was a one and done and now it's a campaign and because it's a casino there are guests guests that get in the way and make things tougher drunks crowds and undercover cops all an unpredictable garnish on a system salad you're now dealing with a safe that is harder to crack with one of us having to be downstairs cracking codes while the other breaks in up top each of us now has our own set of gear that we can customize for each individual mission synergizing and even higher level busting walls changing costumes and spiking drinks that can't be legal none of this is legal but here is the real rub we have no idea what could be in that safe once it is opened it could be anything anything at all so as infiltrators we need to adapt and improvise on the fly to get out safely and one question remains is is any good so burgle one is an absolute favorite of mine i played it a bunch on a holiday in belgium and it was continually tense and dramatic the game not the holiday but if you've not played the original you should check out matt's review of it right here on shutupsitdown.com and i hope that my experience of teaching this game lines up well with presenting its rules your goal is to break into a facility crack open the safe and leave with whatever it is you find inside you'll take actions on your turn which are move peek or interact which all do exactly what you think and once your turn is over the guard on your floor will move dishing out heat if they move past or land on you and your friends too much heat and you're out the rules for these games spring from interactions and text on each tile and card which makes the game so simple that you can teach it off a postcard so knowing the basic premise i'm not going to get that far into what burgle 1 was like and instead focus on burgle 2 the differences between both games and which one is right for you but let's start by talking about the elephant in the casino if you know anything about burglar bros 2 you know that it should look like this but soon after setting it up the wobbly legs and unsatisfyingly curved floor will have you reducing it to this and then to this i'm not particularly aggrieved by this not quite working i mean it's a shame but the game is more than playable in this alternate flatter format as was burgle one production is merely the shell to hold the rules and this game is no exception and we shouldn't get hung up on this stuff because texturally burgle 2 feels so different flipping the switch from breaking and entering to slipping betwixt guests at a bubbling party in full swing it sells this idea in a bunch of ways feeling very ocean's 11 but more bumbling and ridiculous it's present in things as subtle and aesthetic as the wardrobe change from the original or the names of the tiles it's present in the pool and the lounge decks the weatherspoon's carpet that the game sits on bounces instead of guards and heat instead of stealth but the icing on this thematic lasagna are the guests who make the whole place feel alive shifting and wriggling with potential these guests are thematic and characterful drunks that will slide you around crowds to blend in with and undercover cops that'll snitch the bouncer straight over to your location and their presence and danger is mostly felt during that critical decision of safe peaking or speedy reckless moving rushing ahead might be fine if it means you get rid of a pretty madonna or bust an undercover cop but terrible if you run into a saleswoman who will glue you in place as the bouncer steadily approaches but whilst burgle 2 is definitely more characterful and playful in its choices of clientele it is by no means more forgiving ready to whack you round the head with a massive decisions shovel and then i'll probably add a safe that you previously just had to reach and then bust open now requires someone on the ground floor to relay the codes an evocative mechanic that means you'll always be juggling both floors keeping the game close and immediate as well as this guards now immediately move one space towards any commotions that you make as you smash through buffets and eat all the poker chips at the table games that's a potential four movement in 16 tiles meaning that nowhere ever feels truly safe and when these patrol cards that program the guard's movement run out the guards don't get faster they don't reshuffle the deck they just go straight to directly hunting the players moving straight towards their location and especially terrifying prospects when you consider that these rooms are more harsh and unforgiving more eager to tick up and count down as the heat rises selling that illusion of arousing suspicion rather than sneaking in the shadows and then when you make it to the end when you finally crack open this safe you've had your eyes on for the whole game this heist finale system comes along and just turns the whole game on its head for a couple of rounds when you break into the safe rather than getting a single item that will be a pain to carry around you now get a fresh rule set for what winning means in this game i won't spoil some of the surprises but you can make some assumptions based on the components on display here the important thing is that they never push you towards an instant loss in the closing minutes they'll mess up the game just the right amount to give you a fighting chance before gracefully bowing out you're bracing for this dose of random that's going to take the game shake you around and make the ending climactic and then you're done the game is over and your reward is taking a little sticker and a fixing it to this trophy cabinet adjusting the difficulty for next time and getting a new ability for one of your characters it's subtle stuff but they're welcome additions to a game that is normally one and done and can still be played as such once the campaign is over but everything that made the original burgle bros sing is still here in spades you'll be placing yourself into somewhere you thought would be safe from patrols before a hurried rush of planning as the next card has a guard beelining straight for you the ticking clock of dwindling decks pushing you to play faster and riskier creating commotions for distractions hot potatoing guards as you jump around each floor scrambling to get everything done in time and running head first into walls like an ecstatic toddler those twists to the formula produce something that feels slicker more stylish more thematic more rammed with opportunities for teamwork when the game goes well it feels like the systems are passing through your fingers like grains of sand little manipulations leading to perfect outcomes spooling maneuvers and patterns that cascade across the surface of the game and when it goes badly it's like trying to lob a potato at a seagull so surely burgle 2 is a win-win-win an iterated variable design with heaps of replayability and challenge [Music] yes but okay sorry that was a bit harsh and i'll foreground what i'm about to say next by saying that i bloody love both burgle games especially burgle bros 2 the casino capers i might even like it more than the original but there is one weird detail that i kind of want to zoom in on so a lot of burgle 2's default mode of play produces heaps and heaps of narrative but it's narrative that feels a little less direct you'll bump into random guests who'll do random things to you you'll draw random cards from these event decks and you'll discover what the finale is right at the end for a quick rules change i do not think these are problems with the design there is a perfect amount of randomness in this game constantly producing challenge and depth my issue with it might be that a lot of these events have the world happening to you rather than vice versa which is something i find a little frictive when it comes to simulationist designs in the original game you were going too fast and fell off a balcony there's a slapstick directness there rooted in action and result but in burgle 2 sometimes those interactions get a little strained you go to the pool and a lifeguard snitches on your friend you stumble into the count room stuck talking to a saleswoman as a bouncer approaches or a drunk pushes you into a locked cell sure there is a narrative there but it's a narrative that feels less direct and less yours is it fun absolutely is it the specific kind of geeky fun that i'm into mostly to reiterate this is barely criticism burgle 2 succeeds as a sequel in so many ways that it feels flippant and ridiculous for me to knock it down a few points for not succeeding in this very specific way i want it to succeed and i think all the added variance and depth that this randomness offers probably offsets that little doubt in the back of my head that it might not be as clean as the original in fact i actually just deleted a big paragraph in this script where i compare these games to the pc games rimworld and hitman talking about how burgle1 is more hitman because you do stuff to the world and rimworld is more verbal too because the world happens to you but then i realized i was being more than a bit ridiculous the narrative doesn't happen to you in either of these games in any capacity because the puzzle is still front and center and it is as strong and razor sharp as ever in burglar bros 2. and even then tempering that difference is an alternate way of playing the game which has these guest counters be face up with different effects and i might prefer this version it's more clockwork deliberate puzzly and interactive and so that is a review of burgle bros 2 the casino capers i probably would have spent more time talking about burglars one if i had a copy right here but i don't because i gave it to a friend but you know shut up and sit down categorically recommends both burgle 2 and verbal one fantastic games and a fantastic system and probably one of if not the best heist game on the market oh and as to which i prefer more i think it might just have to be burgle too i mean if not just for the theme i mean a casino what more perfect a setting for a game about trying and failing to manage risk of watching the dice tumble through the air until they meet with the cruel green felt that's a review of burger one and burgle two if you like this video there's tons more and there's also a podcast that we do every week now where we talk about board games and it's pretty great if i do say so myself i have to edit it so it has to be great also if you're in the market for some board games shenanigans r convention or shucks it's happening later this month you can find details about that somewhere on this screen and until then or until i next to a video don't know when that is see around have fun with board games bye

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 131,662

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Game Review, Review, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Fun Games, Tom Brewster, Tim Fowers, Fowers Games, Burgle Bros, Burgle Bros 2, Cooperative Games

Id: q65N8PepM9c

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 07 2021