America's twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have far exceeded everyone's expectations for them. Read the full story.

The game began like most: frenzied trading for resources, roads hastily built toward valued cashes, towns and cities rising to dominate the forests and plains around them.

And the barbarians attacked, razing all but one city and sending the island of Catan to a post-apocalyptic Stone Age it would take years (or a half-dozen turns or so) to recover from. Eventually the mighty herds of evolved sheep rose up and founded a new empire of Sheeple, caring deep within in their wood-obsessed minds a healthy respect for the barbarians looming over the horizon.