My extended family has been playing Ticket to Ride for years. It’s one of our go-to games after Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner, and we’ve all gotten comfortable with the mechanics, the strategy, and the map. We’ve mixed it up a[…]
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Category: Board Game Reviews
Pandemic
Pandemic is Z-Man Games’ globe-spanning game of viral infection in which 2-4 players travel from city to city trying to prevent local outbreaks from turning into full-blown pandemics.
The game is played on a map of the Earth, with major cities connected by highways and flight paths. At the start of the game, color-coded cards keyed to the cities are drawn from the Infection Deck, indicating which metropolises have seen virus outbreaks. There are four viruses in all; the goal of the game is to cure the viruses before the planet succumbs to rampant disease.
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Necessary Evil: Explorer’s Edition
Aliens. We always knew they were out there, ready to invade our planet, enslave the population and strip mine its resources. But we also knew that if they should try it, Earth’s greatest superheroes would rise up and save us.
We were wrong.
When the V’Sori came they slaughtered our super-powered defenders just as easily as they did our armies. Now our cities are conquered, our people are terrorized, and the job of saving the world has fallen to the most unlikely of people: Earth’s super villains.
Read moreCan you survive the Betrayal at the House on the Hill?
Betrayal at the House on the Hill is a collaborative board game in which players explore an ancient house on a lonely hill, seeking to unlock its secrets … and its horrors.
It’s a dynamic game whose map is randomly generated each game using a series of tiles representing the basement, first floor and second floor of the house, with a new tile drawn every time a player enters a new room. Players take on the role of one of several adventurers tasked with exploring this haunted house. Each adventurer is represented by a stat card representing key abilities such as speed, strength and will. Different adventurers have different strengths — the preacher is strong in will but weak in physical abilities, while the boy explorer has a high speed, but low willpower.
Read moreTicket to Ride wins on Xbox Live
The Xbox Live version of Ticket to Ride is a faithful port of the popular board game, recreating the train-themed game on Microsoft’s game console. The game board features a map of the continental United States with its major cities[…]
Read moreCarcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is a tile-based board game in which players assume the roles of hunters and gatherers attempting to glean resources from a prehistoric landscape. It’s a great game for geeks, but it’s even better for families. The[…]
Read moreVie for Colonial Domination with Settlers of Catan
Settlers of Catan is one of those games you hear people talk about for years, but somehow never get around to playing. Then when you finally do play it, you wonder why you wasted all that time on sleeping when[…]
Read moreCan the Galaxy be Spared the Fate of the Vanished Planet?
Vanished Planet is a cooperative board game in which players struggle to prevent an ever-growing, inky-black entity from enveloping the galaxy. At the start of the game the Earth has been consumed by the entity, and has apparently been transferred[…]
Read moreRisk 2210 reimagines a classic board game
Every once in a while, our regular Friday night RPG session falls apart. It might be because of sick kids, weddings, extended business trips or just bad luck, but only a handful of our players can make it. If it’s[…]
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