Base price: $30.
2 players.
Play time: 30 – 60 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 16
Full disclosure: A review copy of Watergate was provided by Capstone Games.
It’s surprisingly difficult to write a nuanced review of Watergate without turning my attention to the current political landscape (and the annoying societal tendency to -gate everything). I’m not really a political scholar of any kind, just a Black person living in America, so alarming trends about government corruption and the hawkish overcentralization of Executive authority are just kind of loud noises in my background as I get through the normal day-to-day of living and working in America. It’s not the most fun time I could be having right now (and there are plenty of other folks in minority communities having similar or worse experiences right now) so please try to be kind to the people you know who have a lot of anxiety about things right now, especially going into 2025 Pride Month and other such events. Well, that’s fun. Let’s talk about Watergate!
In Watergate, players take on one of two roles: President Nixon, at the height of his power, or the Journalists who are trying to expose him and do something never done before: bring down the President of the United States. Each player has unique roles and objectives, but it comes down to being able to leverage Events, Conspirators, and Journalists to push and pull Evidence, Initiative, and Momentum. The back-and-forth tug-of-war will result in convincing famous historical figures to either ally with or turn on Nixon as the Journalists seek to connect Nixon to these figures via a web of evidence before he can gain enough Momentum to push through the scandal. All the while, Nixon is pulling figures to his side and destroying evidence to try and take control of the narrative. This card-based two-player head-to-head game is thrilling and topical, so will you be able to defeat the President of the United States, or will you successfully sweep Watergate under the rug?
Overall: 8.75 / 10
Overall, lots to like about Watergate! It’s a superior two-player game that blends that tricky tug-of-war mechanic with some interesting card-based play. The tradeoffs are part of the strategy and part of the challenge. Do you want to try and block an opponent with a particularly useful card, only to lose it for the rest of the game? Or do you save it for now and hope you’ll find a spot to play it later where it’ll have more impact? The game is also tough. Since so much of it is zero-sum, one particularly good or bad round might put you in a bad spot, though it’s pretty rare for it to cost you the game. Nixon’s win condition is pretty simple: if they claim the Momentum Token in five rounds (or the game runs out of Momentum Tokens), they win. The Journalists have the challenging task of getting at least two connections on the board from Nixon to folks cooperating. This means they have to manage to get those cooperative folks placed (without Nixon blocking them) and then get at least three Evidence Tokens of the correct colors onto the web (again, without interference from the President). What makes this fun and interesting is that there’s enough different vectors of attack that you are very frequently jousting with the other player. You need to balance advancing your own plans and thwarting theirs, and that’s almost impossible to do perfectly. Hence, the game starts and remains tense throughout its runtime. That’s not the easiest thing to pull off.
In fact, most of the things I don’t love about Watergate are largely aesthetic. My major gripe is that it’s a game where placement matters but it uses light and cheap cardboard pieces, so it’s pretty vulnerable to any sort of table motion or jostling. I’d normally feel more uncomfortable about playing a specifically “bad person” in a game, but honestly, while this is one of the Great American Political Scandals (only because Warren Harding died before people dug into more of his stuff), this doesn’t feel as icky as playing, say, the Confederacy during the Civil War or something. I guess my dad’s fascination with Watergate has rubbed off on me a bit. This game is extremely zero-sum and high-conflict (as a two-player tug-of-war game both tends to be and should be), so if you’re not looking for that kind of vibe. this may not be the game for you.
If you are excited about a game that’s both tense and intense, or you enjoy the thrill of political upheaval and hard-hitting journalism, this is a great way to experience all of those things. Honestly, there’s even a potentially educational component to it if you invest time in learning more about all of the people included in the game. It’s a fascinating (though not particularly pleasant) period of US history, especially since, canonically, Nixon lost. A wild time end-to-end. I’m almost certainly going to be playing this more in the future; I really enjoy the tension of it all. If you’re looking to bring down Nixon, learn about US History during one of the wildest times possible, or you just like yelling “I’m not a crook” when you win a game, you’ll probably have a great time playing Watergate! It’s a very solid title.
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