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Boardgame Recommendations For Xmas?

Posted by simoniker on from the santa-shops-german dept.

Thanks to GamerDad for their article discussing recommended board games to buy or play this Christmas. The writer argues: "Particularly in the last ten years, board games have evolved and changed, so that they are a far cry from the games of old", and goes on to recommend anything from the Lord Of The Rings board game ("one of the most unique board games of recent years"), to Dvonn ("A game that could best be compared to the abstract strategy of checkers.") What are you going to be buying novice board gamer relatives this Xmas?

9 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. My Recommendation: by jxa00++ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Settlers of Catan.

    1. Re:My Recommendation: by smoondog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yup and Puerto Rico. Both great games.

      -Sean

  2. Cranium by Dormous · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Cranium is one of the most fun board games I have ever played. I got it for christmas last year and we played it on christmas day. Most fun we've ever had. Some of the things you have to do in that game are an absolute riot. It is best described as Pictionary combined with Trivial Pursuit, combined with Charades, combined with Name that Tune.

    Warning!!! Brain Required

    1. Re:Cranium by bigbigbison · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i played it once and it just was not fun to us. we got about half way through and everyone went home.

      --
      http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
  3. My Faves by Oriumpor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    10. Hacker the deluxe edition (until recently oop)
    9. Wizwar
    8. Nuclear War (which someone made into a silly computer game of a similar name.)
    7. Settlers of Catan/Seafarers of Catan (you can find this at nearly every game store)
    6. Eurorails/Empire Builder
    5. Family Business
    4. Risk and/or the NEW risk (of course)
    3. Chess
    2. Checkers
    1. A set of these

  4. Re:Not card games? by jonnypolite · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fluxx is horrible. YMMV. Check out www.boardgamegeek.com for the state of the art, and then go to www.funagain.com or www.gamesurplus.com or www.fairplaygames.com and order the top 10 on their sales list. I am not affiliated with these sites:)

  5. Super Geekin' by Apreche · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3076
    http://www .boardgamegeek.com/game/822
    http://www.boardgameg eek.com/game/555
    http://www.boardgamegeek.com/gam e/1
    http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3931

    The bestest games they be. Settlers is good, but played out.

    I was too lazy to turn these into links. But if you used Firebird and had the textlink extention it wouldn't matter.

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
  6. for family play by timothy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a) ignore age recommendations, generally -- they're mostly nonsense :)

    b) Get games that require creativity in some form. Monopoly could be seen as requiring financial creativity at least, but many games are nothing but throw-the-die-on-your-turn. Win, Lose or Draw, Pictionary, Cranium (if the players are all prepared for it) ... these games make you solve a problem visually or physically, communicate with the other players.

    c) Avoid games with complex pieces, or that require batteries to power whatzitz or doohickeys. They will get lost, or break.

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  7. Re:The oldest, the best.... by clamatius · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Go is one of the "elemental" strategy games, like chess - you see echoes of it everywhere in other strategy games once you understand how to play well.

    It is also fairly simple, given that you can reduce the whole game down to 3 or 4 rules. However, it is extremely abstract and in my experience novice gamers are not generally interested in very abstract games - if they can play a game with nice flavour to it, they'd rather play that instead.

    So, while Go is definitely an amazing game and one of my favourites, I couldn't in all honesty recommend it as a novice game. It also suffers from being a 2-player game, where at Christmas you're better off getting a game where more of the family will be able to play at once.