Gameblog

Category: More about games

  • Spiel des Jahres 2004: Ticket to Ride!

    Ticket to Ride is the Spiel des Jahres 2004. Congratulations to Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder! I haven’t tried the other nominees (yet), but I can certainly agree with this decision by the jury, as Ticket to Ride is a brilliant game.

  • Fist of Dragonstones

    Another day, another game review: Fist of Dragonstones. In Finnish, as typical… Tom Vasel has written a very good review in English. Anyway, I consider Fist of Dragonstones to be a pretty good game, even though I dislike it myself. The mechanics are very repetitive and boring, but the game works well socially. The blind…

  • Reasons for enjoying games

    I came across a rather interesting blog entry about enjoying games. The author cites three aspects on which he finds games stimulating: intelligence, imagination and social. It’s easy to come up with games that provide intellectual stimulation, but not much else. I think most two-player abstract strategy games fall into this category. It’s a weakness…

  • Bruno Faidutti’s Game of the Year 2004

    As Iain already noticed, it’s once again time for Bruno Faidutti to announce his Game of the Year award. This year the winner is Ticket to Ride — not a huge surprise to anyone, I imagine. I agree, and I certainly find myself in agreement with Bruno’s earlier choices as well. I’ve enjoyed all of…

  • Die Macher

    I wrote a review of Die Macher. In Finnish, as usual… Die Macher has rather fitting Geek id: 1. It’s in a way the best board game there is. The theme is interesting (much more than the typical fantasy dragons or renaissance Italy), the mechanics are brilliant and the game is super exciting. The length…

  • I got Media Mogul

    I finally got my copy of Media Mogul. The production standards are a step up from Kogge, but it still isn’t pretty. Quality is better, however — the cardboard chits are properly printed, not laser printer work glued on cardboard. I’ll try the game next Sunday in the board game club. I’ll let you know…

  • Viva il Re!

    I wrote a review of Viva il Re! — in Finnish as usual. I’ve also reworked the front page of my Finnish game site, hope you enjoy the new look, if you’re a reader. I initially rated Viva il Re! as 9 at the Geek, but my rating has since come down to eight. That’s…

  • Four Dragons

    Four Dragons, the new edition of Dia de los Muertos is available, at least in Finland. The theme change is an interesting thing — I do like the original theme a lot. Frank Branham, the game’s designer, takes responsibility of the theme change (as mentioned in a relevant Geek thread). I think the new dragon…

  • Puerto Rico for PC

    Boardgameplayer links to the screenshots of the Puerto Rico PC game. The game looks quite pretty, but I hope the pretty 3d art isn’t the only way to play the game — it just doesn’t look that effective user interface. It’s pretty, that’s for sure. Well, we’ll see if we’ll even see the game outside…

  • San Juan

    I wrote a review of San Juan — in Finnish, as usual. San Juan is a brilliant game, which I like a lot (as you might have guessed already). It takes Puerto Rico and creates a fast-moving and entertaining card game out of it. Enough mechanics are retained so that the game feels the same,…