|
-
Steve Berger
United Kingdom
Borough Green
Kent
-
Having seen a couple of award lists doing the rounds I thought, well, why not? My own list is very different from those that are already doing the rounds, so has its own value. My criteria is simple – games published according to BGG in 2010 that I own. That easy.
Looking through my collection, this gave me 28 games to choose from. Of these 28, there are 3 I haven’t played yet, and 4 that are expansions, so that leaves me with a list of 21 possible winners. This isn’t a lot – I realise that. However, I do think that the top 10 listed below are all very good games indeed.
A couple of honourable mentions need to be handed out first – there are 2 games that didn’t make the top 10 that still deserve credit, being Nuns On The Run, and Fabula. Both, although very different, are excellent as family games.
Fabula provided us with a gaming session on Boxing Day that will stay with me for a long time, and for that deserves praise. We played this as a family (my wife, my four children ranging in ages at the time from 17 to 10, and myself) and I really wasn’t sure what the result would be. My wife was the storyteller, and in the first round set the scene. We all fairly quickly grabbed an item, and told our version of the tale. My second eldest son, 15, was sat quietly, and seemed to me to be totally switched off to the whole idea, and was last to go. He then invented a story using one of the items that knocked the rest of our tales out of the park, and went on to win hands down with some incredibly inventive storytelling. This isn’t a highly rated game on the geek, but I feel deserves more attention. The artwork is outstanding, and the stories are interesting.
Nuns On The Run is a fairly simple enjoyable game that can get quite tense. With multiple players, the uncertainty of how well others are doing makes players push their luck, and adds the element of not only being concerned about being caught, but also about being left behind.
Anyway, getting back on track, my top 10 in reverse order is as follows:
10 – Fresco
Actually what impresses me most about this game is that the box contains plenty of alternative options for playing this game. You can play it like it is, or add whatever element takes your fancy. This gives plenty to explore, and adds life to the title. The production standards are excellent, and the gameplay is simple to understand, yet difficult to properly master, which is how games should be.
9 – Mystery Express
I always liked Mystery Of The Abbey, a game that would always get played Christmas and Easter in the evening, and one our eldest 2 sons have fond memoires of as they remember being allowed to stay up late to play. Mystery Express takes the same Cluedo idea and improves upon it, enough to probably place Mystery Of The Abbey in the superseded category. It’s a game that makes me smile – did I give you that card, and have you just given it back to me, or did I pass that card the other way? Having a guess at the answers before the end is interesting as well, and adds an element of dilemma about whether you take a hunch or not. Again, the production is just excellent, but this is expected from Days Of Wonder anyway.
8 – Catacombs
A simple, light hearted Dungeon romp with disc flicking. To start on a negative, the artwork on the boards, cards, and on the stickers for the discs is pretty poor. The game has that cheap printing feel about it, and all my discs needed a good clean when I opened the box. However, having had to clean all the discs, and apply all the stickers, I had a little bit of a feeling that I myself was involved in the final production! Playing the game is great fun though, and has enough decision making to make it interesting. I’ve considered building a shallow wooden frame to go around the boards to stop the discs from flying around the room, but haven’t come up with a final design yet. The felt mat idea looks pretty sound as well. Because of flying discs, I haven’t played this anywhere but at home. The system is simple – simple enough that a 10 year old can cope with it. The balance seemed fine to us – our last game went very much to the line, and was won by the heroes. It could have easily gone either way. Again here, the emphasis is on family fun.
7 – Runewars
An absolute beast of a box that is only about a quarter full, so slightly frustrating there as space for me is getting pretty tight. When my son leaves for Uni next year, we are moving the other two out of their bedroom, and shuffling them into smaller rooms just to give us a larger study for storing my games, and my wife’s work, and games like this are the reason why. My plan is to get a gaming table in there so I can have games like this set up, and can play them over a few evenings without upsetting anybody. Runewars takes so many different gaming elements and places them in a single game. My only issue is that some quests are very easy to complete, and others are much harder. I need to play the suggested variant to make this a little more balanced. As far as production is concerned, this is fantastic. The pieces look excellent, the mountains add visual flair, and the board looks wonderful when set up. The combat system works well, and there really is an epic feel to it. My only downside is that it isn’t as good as War Of The Ring, and the game doesn’t feel as tense. War Of The Ring does something very similar, and does it slightly better, and in a more recognisable world. With 2 players, I’d be more likely to play War Of The Ring over Runewars simply because they take the same amount of time, but War Of The Ring just does it all a little better.
6 – K2
Yet another card based race game, much like Snow Tails and Fast Flowing Forest Fellers. What this has that they lack though is far more tension. Do I go higher, or am I going to freeze to death on the slopes? What route do I take to avoid other climbers? Do I place a tent here, or do I try and go higher first? Most of my plays of this have been solo, and this works really well – actually this is probably the best solo game I own for a quick gaming fix. If I had the time, I’d play Ghost Stories, but this is simple, quick, deep, and thrilling. I feel quite involved in the experience as well, and I get totally immersed in getting those 2 little wooden climbers to the top and back out safely.
5 – Troyes
Top 5 now, so getting into the serious stuff. There have been numerous games that have used the idea of making dice do something different, and I have different feelings about them all. Kingsburg seemed to start the craze, and is a good game. Stone Age really failed to excite me because the game never seemed to quite gel together, with the two separate elements of rolling for resources, and collecting cards always made the game feel slightly misjointed. Alea Iacta Est (apologies for incorrect spelling) really wasn’t enjoyable at all. Alien Frontiers was the best of the bunch for me, but in our group games the player who could get the most dice in the quickest time always won. Troyes is far more subtle and sophisticated. The numerous card possibilities mean you have to develop your strategy as the game unfolds, making sure you have a presence in the right buildings at the right time. Failure to do so will end your game. There isn’t (as there is in Alien Frontiers) any bash the leader problem, and arguably it is better to have a bad roll. The idea of all end goals applying to all players is clever as well, and makes you keep half an eye on what your opponents seem to be trying to achieve. However, obsessing about this during the game can lead to your downfall. This should see the end to this type of game – it will be difficult to raise the level beyond Troyes. On the production side, the artwork doesn’t seem to suit all tastes, but I enjoy the deliberate period artwork, and feel it helps set the scene.
4 – Inca Empire
Fine, so this game was released some time ago under another name, but in its current format it is new. Also, this is a train game, it just doesn’t have any trains in it. What stands this game apart is you can’t win on your own. You need to work with others, using their network, but without giving them too much of an advantage with yours. The use of cards affecting multiple players is interesting – do I harm others, or help myself? I do feel completely removed from the theme, and yes, the symbology on the cards is confusing to say the least, but the gameplay is sound, and the mechanics work very well. The production quality is high, and the board looks great, especially towards the end of the game.
3 – London
No top 10 for me would be complete without Martin Wallace. Steam and Brass are two of my favourite games, and I do enjoy card games, so the idea of a Wallace card game really got me interested, and this is a game I would have purchased without seeing a single photo or reading a word on it. London is a subject I find absolutely fascinating, and the game follows the development post the fire. Play is interesting, and I particularly enjoy the relevance of the poverty points. Having to balance these, and calculate the best time to run your city is excellent. The dilemma of whether to build over an existing card or start a new stack, coupled with trying to watch money and poverty works well. The Pauper cards are well handled within the game, and the end scoring can be quite tense. The artwork is what you would expect from Treefrog – not great, but not awful either. The map board is well done though, and again the addition of owning districts and using them in collaboration with the cards works well.
2 – Navegador
I’m not too keen on rondel games I’ve played in the past. I find them frustrating, and feel they get in the way of playing the game. With Navegador, I never feel hindered by the rondel as the actions available can always be used in one way or another. In fact, I don’t even find myself thinking too much about the rondel itself. This is possibly due to the lower player interaction in this game. There is competition for privileges, and buildings, or to make the most of the market, but never in a way that completely stops you from doing what you want. You interact with the game rather than any particular player, and this is a real benefit here. The mechanics are simple to explain, but difficult to master. You need to focus on a particular strategy, but tweak it as you go to make the most of the opportunities as they present themselves. It is hard to tell who has taken the win until the final scoring, and a clever move really can make the difference. The game works perfectly well as a 2 player, and can be played in what is fairly quick time for a game of this type – it manages to pack into under 2 hours what many games will struggle to give you in 3. The pieces are excellent (although one of my factories has a little chunk out of it) and the board art is both excellent and perfectly functional. A deserving second place.
1 – Vinhos
Well, if you’ve read any of my blogs before then this won’t be a shock. This game is just excellent. I’ve already written an entire blog on this, so I won’t be saying anything new on this here. The subject matter is well handled, and is interesting to be a part of. The right parts of life as a wine maker are in the game – you make the wines which have quality dependant on the weather during the year, your own facilities and aging process. You sell them according to this quality and their general renown, you need to visit the bank to get cash freed to you and mess around with your investments, you have to visit the fairs where the best wine isn’t necessarily going to win – it all depends on who you know. Managers and experts will help you in different ways, and you can sell abroad for no immediate gain, but ultimately that might get you a victory.
The best way to play isn’t obvious – you need an overall strategy that you learn to develop in order to best match what is going on in the game, and you have to make the most of the opportunities that are available to you. Interaction is enough for you to have to adapt to what other players are doing (and keep an eye on where they might be looking to make their points at the end of the game) but not too much that it can ruin your entire game (unless you are obviously going for the money in which case other players should definitely block that particular bonus). The board is colourful and covers everything you need (yes, I know it looks like a fruit machine), and the components are, on the whole, decent. I’d love little wine bottles rather then the square cardboard counters, but realise what the cost involved would do to the retail.
The biggest fault here is the failure of supply to the US market. This hasn’t been to hard to get hold of in Europe. My version is the German language edition, but it was easy enough to print out the English rulebook, and the game has no text issues – the thematic artwork text on the board is in Portuguese regardless.
So there it is – my top 10 games with a worthy, but unsurprising winner. So what do I own that didn’t make the list? Well, after Fabula and Nuns On The Run was Civ, which although enjoyable is over long, and fiddly. The game asks for more than it delivers, and I’m just not a huge fan of games that require players to beat up on one another all the time. Next was the Railways Of The World Card Game, which I think plays very well, and is a good recreation of the board game. However, when it comes down to it, I’d just rather play Steam.
Rattus was next on the list, coming in at 15th. This wasn’t as good as I hoped, and it does seem that the Witch is a waste of time, and that the best strategy is to take no cards at all! Further plays may change my mind on this.
Next is Mr Jack Pocket, which we played a lot around Christmas time, but not much since. The game is good, it is quick and portable, but doesn’t offer any long term excitement as it offers everything it has very quickly – after about 10 plays, you’ve seen it all.
Next is Defenders Of The Realm – Pandemic with monsters and dice. Monster of a game, interesting to play, some fun new ideas but it is just Pandemic with monsters and dice.
At 18th is Sun, Sea & Sand. Not deep enough to be a game that rewards multiple plays. You really do see everything this has to offer after a couple of goes, and can very quickly develop a strategy with a high success rate.
19th is Forbidden Island, which is Pandemic for kids. There is nothing wrong with that, but this is a kids game. 20th is Braggart, which seems harsh, but again this is as far down as this because it is a children’s game with little skill involved. It is a novelty game that can only be played occasionally before the joke will start to wear thin.
At the bottom of the stack is Road Kill Rally. The theme doesn’t bother me, neither does the artwork. What lets the game down for me is the lack of excitement and racing thrill in a racing game. It is as if the theme was enough, and the game never really evolved from there – I can see the design idea as being ‘We have a name for a game, and somehow we’ll make a game out of it’.
Just to qualify, I don’t think any of these games are really terrible, I just think that there are those that are far better than others. And a quick disclaimer – these are my opinions of the games I own which were released in 2010. If I think about my top 10 games in my collection, only Vinhos is on that list (my current number 5). Navegador and London would most definitely make my top 20, Inca Empire possibly in there as well, but the others would be outside of that. Catacombs is the only new, fresh idea in the list, with all the others taking existing design ideas, and trying to make improvements on them.
I’m interested to see how I feel about these games in a years time, and if I’m still wittering on by then, I’ll review the order at that point. Who knows – Vinhos might be available in the US by then…
|
|
