Gameblog

Category: Reviews

  • Race for the Galaxy

    Race for the Galaxy is one of the hot games right now. The fans — Brian Bankler, for example, his Tao of Gaming is a must read — are babbling about it a lot, and no wonder, as it really is an excellent game. I once said an ideal game would be a quick card-driven…

  • Just 4 Fun

    A review in Finnish of Just 4 Fun. Just 4 Fun by Jürgen P. Grunau is a spin on classic Connect 4. Players try to create a line of their tokens on the board by playing cards whose sum matches a square on the board. It takes quite a bit of counting to get through…

  • Tower of Babel

    Review of Tower of Babel in Finnish. Tower of Babel is a clever area majority game designed by Reiner Knizia. Players try to complete the eight wonders of the world, including the Tower of Babel from the title. Alas, not all of them will be done by the end. Players try to get the majority…

  • End of the Triumvirate

    A review in Finnish of End of the Triumvirate. End of the Triumvirate is a natural three-player game: one player is Caesar, one is Pompeius and one is Crassus. Unlike in real history, the triumvirate couldn’t stop their fighting at the Luca conference, but started a full-blown civil war. Each player is trying to dominate…

  • Hart an der Grenze

    I’ve written a review in Finnish of Tiukka tilanne rajalla. Here’s the same in English — this’ll be my 99th review on Geek, one more to go before the magical Golden Reviewer badge! Hart an der Grenze is a game of bluffing, lying, haggling and negotiating. Players are crossing a border and taking turns acting…

  • Fairy Tale

    I wrote a review of Fairy Tale in Finnish. Fairy Tale is a drafting game with a very superficial fantasy theme. There are four rounds: in the beginning of each, five cards are dealt to the players. Each player takes one card and passes the rest to the next player. Of the four cards they…

  • Portobello Market

    Review of Portobello Market in Finnish. Portobello Market won the Hippodice game design competition as East India Railways. Schmidt picked it up, switched the theme and here we have a game set in the London’s famous market street. Lautapelit.fi was quick to publish this in Finnish. Portobello Market seems to be designed for Spiel des…

  • Caylus Magna Carta

    Caylus Magna Carta reviewed in Finnish. Caylus Magna Carta is the card game version of Caylus, the big hit from 2005. Caylus is a good game, but for some reasons it just didn’t work for me that well. One thing is definitely the length: 30 minutes per player is just too long. Magna Carta definitely…

  • Yspahan

    Yspahan reviewed in Finnish. Yspahan is a game of camels and trading from Ystari Games. The initial buzz over this one wasn’t that big, and I would’ve missed the game altogether based on that. However, Westpark Gamers did a brilliant Windows version of the game (see Yspahan for Windows website), which caused a lot more…

  • Zooloretto

    Review of Zooloretto in Finnish. Zooloretto is the latest game in the Coloretto family. This zoo-themed family game is based on a familiar mechanism that works so well in the small card game. This big box board game turned out be another success for Michael Schacht. A simple idea The basic idea is the same:…