Gameblog

Category: More about games

  • Antiquity

    Review of Antiquity in Finnish is available. Antiquity is a game of competing city-states. In the beginning, cities are empty and the landscape is open for all to take. As the game progresses, cities grow and new towns are founded, while the landscape is exploited and becomes a polluted mess of useless land. The question…

  • Fjords

    Here’s a review of Fjords in Finnish. Fjords (or Fjorde) is a nice little two-player game about the vikings — however, this time the vikings are not burning and pillaging, they are farming and exploring! The game is divided in two phases. First players lay tiles to build a map and place farms on the…

  • Labyrinth — Die Schatzjagd

    Review of Labyrinth — Die Schatzjagd in Finnish. Labyrinth — Die Schatzjagd is a new game under the Amazing Labyrinth banner. It’s quite different from the other labyrints, though. Treasures in a maze This time players are tracing their way through small labyrinth cards, trying to find treasure chests. There are ten chests on each…

  • New Confrontations

    I got the new Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Deluxe Edition yesterday. The original is one of the best two-player games I have, how does the new edition compare? First thing you notice is the big box. It’s a big box game now, which makes me a bit reluctant to sell the old edition,…

  • Havoc: The Hundred Years War

    Here’s a review some of my readers have been waiting for: Havoc: The Hundred Years War. That’s the Finnish review, here’s my opinion in English: I first played Havoc: The Hundred Years War at the Sunriver Games demo table in Essen 2005. It was on my list of games to check out and I enjoyed…

  • Preview of Tempus

    I got to take a look at the rules of Tempus, and it sure looks pretty good. My first impression is Vinci with just one civilization for each player, but that’s a very brutal approximation. The game is mostly about Lebensraum, building up your empire, one people token at the time. The citizens procreate and…

  • New releases in Finnish

    Marektoy releases for 2006 are now public. I’m personally fond of Cluzzle being published, as I’ve translated it and because it was picked from my suggestion. So Dominic, sending me a review copy was a good move. I’m glad it’s out in Finnish, as it’s definitely one of the better party games out there. Also…

  • Scotland Yard

    Here’s Scotland Yard reviewed in Finnish. I was two years old when Scotland Yard won it’s Spiel des Jahres award in 1983. The game was one of my favourites when I was younger and since it’s still around, over 20 years later, it must have something going for it. Darker tones I played it again…

  • Jim’s San Juan

    If you like San Juan and have a Mac, go get Jim’s San Juan (zip packet, almost five megs). It’s a very good computer version of the card game. The user interface is very smooth and easy to use. The AI is fairly good, but not superb. I’ve only lost once to any of the…

  • Multiplayer games for two

    Iain asked me about other multiplayer games that work with two (other than Caylus, that is). Well, here’s a small list: First of all there are few games with modular boards that scale really well. Samurai is the king of scalable games, as it works really well with two, three or four. Some might actually…