TDG: Cody's Top Ten Cooperative Games (January 2023)

foreign ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the discriminating gamer you know I recently tried to get a bunch of Pros together to work on a project but they wouldn't cooperate it was an attempted murder ladies and gentlemen today we're going to go ahead and take a look at my top 10 Cooperative games of all time [Music] ladies and gentlemen so we're going to discuss my top 10 Cooperative games of all time uh as always I'd judge them not only well here how fun are they is my ultimate thing but also too how well do they do I enjoy playing them with other people and working with other people to solve these problems I would like to say also generally speaking I prefer competitive games but once in a while I really enjoy a good Cooperative game so let's go ahead and take a look at it first of all I just uh one honorable mention I want to make and that is dark Gothic from flying frog games you know back in the day I played a lot of different flying frog games and this is the only one I still got and uh it's it's it's it's one that's still it's fun but it's creepy it's kind of the um uh colonial America Sleepy Hollow I think that this game and Touch of Evil that it was based on are both kind of owe a lot to this Johnny Depp Sleepy Hollow film but it's a very good game uh the deck builder you've got a big Baddie you're going after you've got a real diet sometimes you got three different currencies and I like the artwork it's not art it's actual photographs of people in Period clothing you don't see that a lot it was kind of quirky and kind of fun and I got a kick out of that but now let's go ahead and jump into my actual um games number 10 is Project Elite from come on project Elite is a great game or you're working together you're all like uh fighting aliens you're in like a crash spacecraft or whatever and you're fighting these aliens and what's cool here is like I say you go through the motions you have this kind of regular give and take stuff where you're discussing and strategizing but then you have this like two minutes of chaos you got a timer and for two minutes you're just battling you're just rolling die and battling these these aliens and when you roll the die you may inadvertently move those aliens closer to you and so that that cooperation kind of breaks down to that point but it is tremendous fun I really enjoy the game uh what by cooperation I mean this the strategies are breaking down to that point you're still very much working together but it's a fantastic game great many is great uh just just the whole package here is a whole lot of fun and it's and it's it's kind of a different game where you shift into that kind of timed kinetic uh part of the game there so really enjoy that but that is Project Elite that is number 10 and that's from come on number nine is um one of the series of games with two games um that I I first played the the original about three or four years ago when I was down in Texas really fell in love with it and I think I like the sequel to it even more and this is horrified American monsters now let me be clear I like the theme of the original one the universal monster is better but the the individual mini games in American monsters I like better I just think they're they're fun they click but this is a very light and simple game where players have to strategize on okay you you go ahead you you take care of this and you grab these things you take out that guy and I'll grab this and I'll escort this this villager to their their location but you're always you're always working together to try to get the the mini games completed and it's a whole lot of fun it it it it it works very well and like I say I think the American monsters won the the mini games are even more fun than they were in the original but I still love the original but that is uh horrified American monsters my number nine and that is from Ravensburger my number eight is a game that came out I want to say 2014 2015. it's it's a great Co-operative game in fact it's one of the best Cooperative games that I know of that you cannot alphagain because every uh your ear information's hitted but this is the grizzled from come on now in the grizzled which of course is is it's World War One and you're working together in order to uh essentially survive you're trying to get through the end of the war and you have to lay down a card on your turn but if ever you lay down a card that if every I think there's three symbols on it and the cards have different symbols if ever there's three of the same symbols on the cards you will lose you'll die so you've got to be very very selective in how you play your cards and there are some ways you can mitigate that and get around it but generally speaking you've got to play your cards just right and again you can't alphagain because you can't tell anybody else what cards you have you just have to play it so it's a great great Cooperative game that doesn't allow for Alpha gaming and it's got a great theme very sad and somber game but really a fun one as well this is the grizzled my number eight that is from come on my number seven is actually a game I played fairly recently and this is Star Wars the Clone Wars now Star Wars the Clone Wars is a lot of fun it's it's quite different uh well let me put it this way it's based on pandemic right it's essentially the the pandemic kind of game but I think it's better than pandemic because it's got these missions that you go after and it's got with the Star Wars theme you got villains and they got these finales that you've got to defeat but again you got to work together okay well I'm gonna go I'm gonna put out this fire you've got to go and put out that fire you gotta take out that mission I've got to get rid of all these these Droids on this planet or we're gonna have you know our threat tracks gonna go up so there's all sorts of really fun um strategies you and your friends have have to employ while trying to win this game but again you've also got cards you've got allies that come out they're like powerful one-time abilities and you got the Troopers and you got the cards that also act as your as your um hit points as well as what you can do in the game but it just came out here not too long ago just a few months ago and I'm kind of hooked it's just a tremendously fun game that a great theme and great great mechanisms there that is Star Wars the Clone Wars that is my number seven that is from z-man games my number six is a game that I've just played recently and again I think I just put up the review here not too long ago this is GI Joe Mission critical from Renegade game studios now again I'm a huge GI Joe fan I love GI Joe as a kid I loved it and I still get a kick out of it it's just a great IP it's a great Comic Book cartoon IP but it's so much fun in this particular game you're going to various locations again it's kind of like almost pandemicy where you're getting these Cobra Troopers pop up and you're trying to take them out before they can overwhelm you so you're moving the jokes different locations but the way you play cards is really cool because you play cards to make attacks but you roll die for the attacks but also too if the the cobras battle you because you put their cards out on this kind of Tableau if they battle you you have to then use your cards as defense and if ever you run out of cards to defend yourself with your your you know knocked out of the game essentially um at least for for a time you have to well I won't get into it but it's bad thing if you if you can't uh if you don't have the defenses in order to defend yourself with if you run out of cards in your deck but at the same time you need the cards to fight with and so it's kind of a good balance between using these cards to fight but they're also kind of your health and I really like that as well but again it's a great Cooperative game okay you put out this fire I'll try to put out this firewood we're gonna take these guys out um it's a great game where you're working together and you're laughing and you're having a ball really enjoy GI Joe Mission critical that is my number six that is from Renegade game studios my number five is a game that um again it came out a few years ago I played it I know I played it once at a convention and I played the first edition of the convention and then a couple of years later they had the um the uh what do you call it the uh they did a second edition of it and the second edition uh they sent me I did a review and this was black Orchestra from Starling games I believe and black Orchestra is essentially you are the resistance to Hitler you're in the OB fair in the military uh some civilians and you each have different roles and these are actual people you know class fun stuffenberg canaris Dietrich bonoffer um you know all these different uh fellows and so you go ahead and you play them and you're trying to outwit the Gestapo you're trying to kill Hitler you're trying to to get Hitler into a point where you can take him out and you've got to get a plot you got to find what plot you want to do you got to collect the the things you need for the plot you got to be in the right place at the right time so it's all these little things coming together it's got a great great historical theme to it that deals with World War II but it's not really a war game and it's got a you know a lot of people say the payoff's not as big it's kind of anticlimactic and I can totally see that but for me this is a game I sweat throughout are we going to do it are we going to take him out and it's a great way again to say to people okay you you you you pursue that plot I'll pursue this plot or I got to get you you know you need you know these these documents or you need this explosives I'll get this stuff to you where can we meet up how can we make this thing happen at the same time you don't want to be the same spaces as the party leaders because they're going to cause problems for you just an absolutely brilliant game I I really like it love the theme and I think mechanically it works really well that is black orchestra that is my number five that is from Starling games my number four kind of gets back to a game I mentioned earlier same theme this is the GI Joe deck building game from uh Renegade this game is again came out just I think came out last year I played it earlier this year um oh I say recording this in December 2022. so when I get this up it'll probably be 2023. but it was a it's just a great game because again for all those reasons I told you I love GI Joe I love this theme here but also too it's really cool because in order to go on missions you have to take a vehicle your cards can actually fight but then they can also recruit at the same time and then critically when you buy new cards and send them going in your in your discard they actually go to the top of your deck which is something you usually don't see in deck builders but you go ahead and you play through that and it is just so much fun because when you go on a mission other people they can actually contribute to that mission they can help you on a mission so you can actually work together to overcome the specific story that your story mission that you're trying to work through so again it's a great game and I played this a lot solo but I've also played it cooperatively and it's fun when you're working with other people that can actually help you on those missions so again this is another fantastic Cooperative game that is the GI Joe deck building game that is number four that is from Renegade game studios my number three this is this is from a family of games and I just kind of went with the one but I probably could have gone with with others but I chose this one because and I kind of go back and forth but I think this is still probably my favorite and that is uh legendary and alien deck building game now I love legendary Marvel I love legendary Marvel in fact I probably played legendary Marvel more than any other game I own but legendary encounters alien uh aliens is so much fun because in this one um you've actually this introduces and they've subsequently introduced it into Marvel but this one introduces the cooperate card now again you're playing through the movies right you're playing through the different aliens movies which in and of itself is awesome but you're playing through these different movies and as you're playing through it of course you have avatars you have different roles and you're playing your cards in order to try to take out these aliens but with this cooperate card um if it's somebody else's turn you can play the cooperate to essentially give them you know that power that recruit or that attack that they can use then in order to to fight the aliens and then you still got to draw another card so it's a really cool system and it's a cool way to work together and man it's a nail biter this game is a nail biter I beat it a couple of times but far more often I lose this game because it is so freaking tough but it's it's great I love Alien deck building game and and I know I always say to Zach first time I played with Zach he's like man it felt just like that scene in Aliens when they're like you know you know 14 meters 12 meters 10 meters you know and you do you see those cards coming and it just scares you that is Alien Legendary encounters an alien deck building game from upper deck that is my number three my number two Cooperative game is another game that's it's a family of games and I'll probably choose the second edition of this although I could probably choose any of the others but this is zombie side I love zombie side and I played a lot of zombie side solo which is fun but I much prefer it again when you're playing it with other people because you get that cooperation and you get that working together and you get okay you go in here you get that weapon your search for that weapon and I gotta head over here and search for this weaponer or I gotta take out this guy or I've got the molotov cocktail I gotta maneuver myself where I can throw it at the uh the Abomination so you've got all these different things going on and it's just as I say tremendous fun it is I love working with people trying to solve the puzzle of how do we get our survivors from here to there or meet whatever objective we've got to I like the artwork I like the the dice chucking and the dice manipulation there's just so much about this game I freaking love and I always want to play with other people but that is zombie side uh Second Edition that is from come on and that is my number two so I number one Cooperative game of all time now if you if you're familiar with the channel you you might forgive you if you you probably said I was going to say zombie side or legendary is my number one and they usually could have been but the reason I selected this one is it's a game that whenever I play with new people they're always kind of Blown Away and and most and whenever I play this place with somebody who is not a gamer they're kind of Blown Away I think this is what a game can do right and it's not a Gateway yeah I wouldn't call this a Gateway game per se but people I played with have just I've just seen them just their minds expand whenever they played this game and I like this game too because it's got a horror theme and I'm a big fan of of of horror in general I love hard books horror movies I love hard games but also too it's it's creepy it provides some of the best atmosphere of any game I've I've ever played it has an app which I know puts some people off but I really really like it this of course is Mansions of Madness Mansions of Madness is this great storytelling game now some of the games some of the some of the missions some of the scenarios are longer than they need to be sometimes they're little wonky things here or there but more often than not I get from this game just a a great feeling of of having read a book or seen a movie and playing through these scenarios but at the same time I'm the agent right I'm not just passively taking in the story and making decisions to to to to control the story but again it's good cooperation because you've got to say okay look I'm gonna go explore this area of the board you need to go explore that you need to talk to that guy I need to solve this puzzle you have to make those decisions and negotiate how things are going I actually it was Holly's birthday my friend Holly's birthday just um oh a week or so ago and we played like the the Uber long was it like four to six hour scenario uh she wanted to play so I'm like okay I'm game I've never played it before and it was too long it was longer than it needed to be but it was still fun we still had a ball we still had moments where we were laughing like I went insane at one point and so my victory condition changed right at the end and I kind of had to battle them a little bit over it it just gives some really really fun um narrative moments that again you will laugh at and you will cringe at and you will you will you will you know nail bite great game I love Mansions of Madness I don't think they're going to produce any more expansions for it I've got them all and I don't think they're going to produce any more which kind of makes me sad because this is such a wonderful wonderful uh interactive experience I love Mansions of Madness and that is why it is my number one game my number one Cooperative game of all time that is from Fantasy Flight games Mansions of Madness well ladies and gentlemen thank you once again for joining us uh let me know what your favorite Cooperative games are let me know if you think some of mine are stinkers or if you agree with me I'm always happy to hear what other people think and there's no shortage of good Cooperative games out there again I played a lot of games a lot of Cooperative games that I have really really enjoyed these just happen to be my 10 favorite let me know what your lists are I'm always eager to hear it um but please please please like us on Facebook subscribe to us on YouTube uh follow us on Twitter leave comments love to hear your your feedback and please check out my other channel Cody Carlson PhD where we talk about military history and books on history I I'm uploading some of my lectures now please check that out I really appreciate it please subscribe to that channel and please uh if I post this on on uh if you see this on uh Board Game Geek give it a thumb as well that helps us out a lot you know ladies and gentlemen one thing I always like about teamwork and one thing I always really emphasize about teamwork is if things go wrong you can always blame someone else [Music] it's a long time [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: The Discriminating Gamer

Views: 9,410

Keywords: board game reivew, board game top ten list, CMON, flying frog productions, starling games, ravensburger, upper deck, renegade game studios, fantasy flight games, z-man games

Id: PdEfgrQ_3Qg

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2023