One of Hasbro Games' newest lines is the U-Build Games series, which consists of revised versions of five classic Hasbro board games. These games are Monopoly, Connect Four, Mouse Trap, Sorry, and Battleship. The way these games have been revised is they now have an added aspect of building, similar to that of Legos or MEGA Bloks.Of these five games, I thought the U-Build Battleship game would be the most engaging for our 6.5 year old son. He loves to play with building sets and I recall enjoying the classic Battleship game when I was a child, as did my husband.
The U-Build game actually came in a special U-Build shipping box, which was quite unique. What a smart way to promote the U-Build brand. Plus it certainly adds to the excitement if you happen to be ordering and sending a gift directly to a child.
One thing you cannot do is open the box and start playing right away. You must read the instructions and figure out how to build the ships for both sides. A younger child might be able to figure it out eventually, but it certainly helps to move things along if an adult or older child lends a hand.
My husband ended up building each of his ships and then our son was able to build identical ships just from looking at the built ones.
Each ship sits on a numbered cardboard rectangle. The number represents the quantity of guns on each ship, as well as how many times that ship can be hit before it is sunk. There are extra parts leftover after all the ships from both sides were built, so I think each player should be able to build each ship the way they like as long as they keep the same size base and the same number of guns.
The game boards are made of laminated cardboard. They have removable sides that help the backdrop to stand upright and help to block your opponent's view of your ship placement. These sides need to be removed to fold the game back up, so I'm not sure how long they will last after so many rounds of assembling and disassembling. Once everything is set, the gaming can commence.
Like with other strategy games, it will take some practice for our son to get the hang of it. He has learned to understand games like chess and Mastermind, so this one will take a few more tries for him to fully grasp the concept of how to deduce the placement of the opponent's ships. I think U-Build Battleship would be a big hit with Battleship fans both young and old.
To learn more about this and other U-Build Board Games, visit Hasbro.com . You can find this game series most places where Hasbro Games are sold, such as HasbroToyShop.com, Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and Toys R Us.
Thank you to Hasbro for sending us a sample game free of charge to base this review upon.
