Review 3: Hotel

I wanted to give you a game review this week that didn’t score a full 10/10 but still held its own against the well-known.  In truth, this was the game that really hooked me in when I was younger.  It was the game that the adults got to play and the children didn’t.  It looked great as the game progressed and was easily played over a course of an evening:

Name: Hotel

Players: 2-4

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Suggested Ages: 8 and up

Awards: None

Game Setting:

The game is set around the world and players taken on the role of hotel owners, buying them, building them up and then enjoy those occasions when other players come and stay at them.  However at the same time as other players are staying at your hotels, you are staying at theirs.   

Game Play:

Each player chooses a colour and takes a car that matches that colour.   On their turn players roll the die and move the number of spaces.  Depending on the space that they land on the player will mostly be able to either buy the land on either side of the road or building sections to a hotel they already own.

 

When a player wants to build they roll the permission die to see if they roll a ‘green’ for being able to build at normal price, ‘red’ for not being able to build, ‘H’ for a free section to the hotel of ‘X2’ to pay twice the amount.

Other spaces include gaining free parts to the hotels and free entrances to the hotels. 

When the players make it past the town hall they are able to buy entrances to their hotels.  These entrances are then placed on the board adjacent to the hotels that the player owns.  As soon as other players then land on the on the spaces with entrances, before taking the action from the space, they must stay at the hotel.

 

To stay at a hotel the visiting player rolls a die to see how many nights they stay.  Once they know how many of the 1 to 6 nights they’re staying the hotel owner then checks the number of nights against the number of sections to the hotel they have managed to build so far.  The visiting player then pays the owner the required amount.

Failure to pay means that hotels are put up for sale.  As soon as a player has no more money they are out of the game.

 

The winner is the person who is left in the game, holding all of the money and all of the hotels.

My Score:

Game Play:  3/4

Components: 1/2
Replayability: 2/2
Theme: 2/2

Total: 8/10

My Comments:

For those of you who love Monopoly, this one is going to really put your love for the game to the test.  In just the same way as Monopoly, some of the hotels cost more to build but cost more to stay at.  Players move round the board in the same way as in Monopoly and will get money from the bank each time they pass it. 

For me, where this game edges it past Monopoly is due to how fantastic the board and the hotels look.  3D, large hotels build up throughout the game and then once the hotel is finished the owning player can add facilities to increase the amount that can be charged to other players. 

The fact that you may or may not be able to build or the build is going to cost you twice as much creates a sense of risk.  The chance of rolling a free hotel drives you to sometime build when you shouldn’t.   Knowing that you just need to build one more section of the hotel and have someone stay just a few nights gives the feeling of hope which is sometimes lost in Monopoly when you know there’s three sides of the board for the other players to get round before they get to your single house.

The great thing in this game is the person who buys the most expensive hotel is not guaranteed to win and neither is this true of the person who owns the most hotels.   In Hotel the game moves on at a quick place and layers don’t left feeling as though they’re doomed to lose from their second trip round the board.

The version that I have and is pictures above, you can’t buy anymore but there is a newer release which I have to say looks great….maybe one for the Christmas list.  It appears to use planes rather than cars for the playing pieces, which makes sense as the hotels that the players are buying are all over the world.  The hotels look even better than they did before including one that looks like a tree house hotel.  It looks like a fresh remake that still works well as a game.

I didn’t give Hotels 10/10 for two reasons (hence the loss of 2 points).  The first is because the game is limited in depth.  I sometimes find that roll of the dice games means that there is often one player who feels that they are never going to win.  Games that have less randomness give players the chance to plan and offer the chance to create a way out of the position.  In Hotel, rolling the dice also means that there are a limited number of decisions that you can make on your turn.  The choices are more about “do I spend the money now and hope I don’t land on someone else’s hotel” or “play safe and save the money while other people build their hotels around me”.

The second drop in point is due to the design.  Don’t get me wrong the game looks far better than almost any Monopoly board and there is a huge feeling of satisfaction when you see the towers of the President hotel rising high above the board, shining in their reflective surfaces making you lots of money.  However one slight knock of the board and a large number of the hotels can come crashing down, scattering entrances across the table and displacing the players playing pieces.   You’d think it doesn’t happen very often, but a careless loose sleeve whilst moving your car or a fumbled pass of a fiddly entrance is enough to tempt fate.

Overall I’d say to anyone give this game a try (the new versions still seems to have all the look and feel of my version).   It’s a less stressful version of Monopoly and is certainly quicker to play.   IT LOOKS GREAT.  There are very few games that are not young children’s games that looks as good as this one.  Forget little red hotels and green houses, have towering buildings with swimming pools, tennis courts, beaches and parasol covered tables.   An 8/10 is still a good score.

Anyone who has played the latest version out this year ‘Hotel Deluxe’ let me know how it plays!