" If I catch you still playing Risk I'm gonna give you a whoopin'! "

      Title: Napoleon in Europe by Eagle Games

      Format: Table Top Strategy Board Game

      Reviewing Monkey: Our Ape Masters

      The Hype: Following on the heels of Game Monkeys' former spotlight game "War! Age of Imperialism", Napoleon in Europe brings the epic battle for conquest to 18th century Europe.

      What This Monkey Thought...

      Playability: Okay, I'm a "Risk" fiend. I say that just so you can draw bearings on what I enjoy and how much I love to stomp my fellow monkeys in world domination. That said Napoleon blew the frickin' pants off every other boxed strategy game I've ever played! Rich, deep, and exciting, the game comes boxed with 3 different sets of rules. The simple rules only take a couple of hours to play and are perfect for killing time by conquering your friend's nations. This gets progressively more complex through the Standard game and lead to the incredibly detailed and amazingly complex Advanced game which pit me and a monkey into a full 10 hour slugfest (and, coincidentally, gave us something to do on a particularly dismal rainy Saturday). The variety in play and stalwartness of the rules was nothing but impressive and will likely set the bar for all games of its ilk in the future. Amazing. 5 out of 5

      Layout and Presentation: Heh. I read Dungapult's review of "War!" before starting this one and can't help but steal his write up for this section. In his review he aptly said, "Should I look at the giant, full color map? Should I default to the intricately detailed plastic miniatures included? Should I grade the gorgeously colored and illustrated instruction book? Or should I just stop being catty and just give it all five out of five?" and that sums it up rather nicely. The game comes with 564 plastic minis that could well be used for other strategy gaming and a giant, full color, 46x36" game board that is just plain gorgeous to look at. Outstanding. 5 out of 5

      Value vs. Cost: Napoleon will run you about 50 bucks in most retail stores. Now, to put that in perspective, I just finished a video game review for a piece that was about the same price and offered approximately 6 hours worth of gaming. And while I'm not saying table top gaming equates to video gaming at a one to one ratio, I am saying that if you bought this and only played it twice you'd still have better than doubled your cost for hour spent gaming. Pretty keen. 5 out of 5

      The Verdict:

All in all, what you have here is a fantastic game and a great value. Fun, easy to learn but with incredible depth, and chock full of goods for the dollar, you'd be hard pressed to make a better choice if you're in the mood for some good table top gaming.

      The Good: Great, beautiful game that comes with nearly 600 miniatures.

      The Bad: It's so big and heavy that if you put it on a flimsy, high shelf it could slip off and crush you.

      The Overall Ugly: If I catch you still playing Risk I'm gonna give you a whoopin'!

      What it's Worth: Market.