Ultimate Board Game Collection (Valcon) - Sony PSP

Nice to have the collection of these games right on my PSP. I enjoy playing against the computer even though they're not that smart haha. But nonetheless, still fun. And definitely worth the money for this little gem. I'm still learning new games every time I boot her up.

Great play alot

The shipped it quickly, and it works well for a used product. This was just what I wanted to replace a set of games that is not being produced anymore.

Excelent product

didn't work

Apparently, the PSP version is the best of this particular release. I've read reviews of the PS2 version which claim it has long animations and badly-implemented 3D boards and other such attempts to help immersion. That is NOT true of the PSP version--it's just the games, no attempts at glitz or glamour. It's pick-up-and-play fun.There are 20 games, each with a tutorial (when you start the game, click on the head in the lower-left corner) that adequately explains the rules. I haven't played all of them, but the ones I did play were well-implemented, and pretty much the best console renditions of these games that I've played.... Except for Go. The version of Go on this collection plays adequately, and I imagine it would be fun with two players, but it has two big drawbacks.1. Board size selection. You can only play on either 9x9 or 13x13 boards. A full Go board is 20x20, and it disappoints me that you're forced to play a pared-down Go game (unless there's a way to unlock the full board and I just haven't discovered it yet?)2. The AI is terrible. To be fair, Go isn't like Chess--it depends a lot on intuitive logic and computers can't intuit, so naturally they suck at Go. That being said, the AI in this collection acts like it doesn't even understand the rules of the game. It will uselessly sacrifice pieces and clutter up territory (which is the OPPOSITE of what you're supposed to do), pretty much ensuring you can't lose, even if you set it to "Hard" mode.If Go were better, this would probably be the definitive portable Go experience. But sadly, it isn't.Fortunately, there are 19 other games, including Reversi (another personal favorite), several variations of Tic-Tac-Toe, Chess and Checkers (including Chinese Checkers), Mahjong (which I now finally understand how to play thanks to the tutorial) and, unexpectedly, even Shogi! These other games are solidly implemented, and more than make up for the minor letdown of the Go experience.Recommended to everyone.

All of the write ups I saw before I bought this game neglected to say what games were included but I bought any way. The games are broken down to 5 catagories: ALL TIME FAVORITES (Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Reversi) WORDS & NUMBERS (Anagrams, Dice, Kakuro, Sudoku, Word Cubes) PUZZEL GAMES (Concentration, Enigma, Jigsaws, Mahjong) FAMILY FAVORITS (3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Naval Battle, Parcheesi, Quattro, Snakes and Ladders) STRATEGY GAMES (Dominoes, Go, Mancala, Gomoku, Shogi). In addition to having a lot of obscure games the game is not very intutive. It is difficult to figure out how to get help or get to the tutor mode. The font that is used plus the colors (font and background) make it difficult to read in places. The scoring on some games is different to what I am used to (i.e. dominos) and different from Hoyle's board games (PC/MAC) and so far I have not found a way to adjust change the scoring.

I bought this game while on vacation recently & have thoroughly enjoyed it. The game has versions of Battleship, Mancala, Chess, Checkers, Concentration, Othello, Chinese Checkers, and many more(Some of the games I've noted above are the brand name the board games go by--they're called something else on this game disk.). While I cannot speak for the AI in the version of Go on this game as a previous reviewer has, I can say I found the AI on the games I have played to be fairly challenging and there are varying skill levels. I found the AI for the chess game very challenging--far more so than the AI for the PSP game Online Chess Kingdoms--interesting graphics-cruddy AI. The graphics are not state of the art, but with the number of games on this one disk for the price you pay, graphics shouldn't factor into your decision. Well worth the purchase price, particularly for the number of games you get and GREAT for taking on the road!

some games ok thanks m.tucker

This is a great game collection, something different for the PSP! Each game comes with a tutorial, which is really nice, especially for harder games like 'Go'.