Re: OT: Board Games
 

hmmm well... if it's not good for 2 players I'm not buying these days http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif... all other things are less important if it's fun (I like that idiotic dungeon crawling game too.. even though it's very luck based ...dn't have it htough.. not so nice with 2 players)

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Awful Green Things is great. Even better if you have two sets and a GM and play with your opponent 'hidden' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Powergrid is a little heavier than Peurto Rico but I prefer it but is a classic 'Euro' game. Perhaps my favourite of that type.

Dune (an old out of print game now) is a classic and really good with the right set of players. You need at least 4 and preferably 5 or 6 for it to really work though. Successive win attempts mean that the cards and money should circulate and keep everyone in the game. Titan is excellent with 2 or 3 but too slow (too much down time when others decide to fight out the battles) with more.

I like the 18XX games but they are quite long for games which you often know you are out of early. Same with Civ & Advanced Civ. This is a fault with a lot of the 'older' games. Players are effectively out of the game but you need them to stay playing for a few hours or the game folds. Sound familiar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Paths of Glory and the other card driven war games tend to be very good. They are really taking over the strategic war game market (with the block games). Perhaps because they can be played in between 6-10 hours (and can be played via Vassel & Cyberboard) but have the scope and skill of some of the larger strategic wargames of the past. You know the ones we all have stuck up in the loft that take 10 hours to set up and 100 to play....

RA is a great auction game. But if it is a pure auction action you are after Modern Art is also very good.

Colossal Arena is decent hidden betting game with a fantasy theme. Evo is a great dinosaur evolution game with you bidding on genes to improve you dino (but spending victory points to do so) before the meteor strikes. Primordeal soup is similar but involves you bidding for genes on your amoeba and drifting around looking for the right coloured mixture of food to eat while cr**ing out your own colour that your opponents like to feed on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

For lighter games Carcassonne & Ticket to Ride are good. But I prefer card games like Wyatt Earp, Schnappchen Jagd, Bohnanza, Frank's Zoo and For Sale for lighter quicker games.

Boardgame geek is a great resource for all things boardgame. The link is in many of the above posts. They also have a great system of Geekgold which is used to buy yourself avatars and to exclude adds etc from the site. You get it for contributing to the site - reviews, pictures etc. and you can also gift it to others.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

In the not quite boardgames category:

Nuclear War (And Nuclear Escalation) -- Woof! You lose 20 million people!

Illuminati (The original not the trading card version) -- "Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow" are controlling the Boy Scouts?

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Wiz War!

Family Business is great, but it's best with 5 or 6.

LOTR Risk turns out to be far more fun than it sounds.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Wiz War! been waiting for this to be re-released for years.

Oh and I misnamed one of my top picks so here it is again:
Galaxy Trucker

This game is a blast, not deep but fun. You have to build a space ship with limited time and then try and ship your cargo through the dangers of deep space. You will cry when an asteroid splits your spaceship in two due to faulty design on your part. Hilarious.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

It compares it the way it is greatly more complex, immensely more depth and very less graphic (about half of the characters are very bad drawn). It's an Avalon Hill golden age, you know.
If you watch on bgg there is a good guy that has completly remade the graphics and they are beautiful. There is a discussion about how to publish all the new components.
Also, the very difficult original rules have been rewritten and "translated" in plain english.

Btw, speaking of wonderful pdf games, for those who love talisman and have a good color printer, I heartly recommend Djarhun (look on bgg).

Re: OT: Board Games
 

The remade rules and graphics for Magic Realm, plus some major extensions making the game bigger, are also part of the open source project on it. So besides BoardGameGeek.com you might also check SurceForge.net for your favorite old games.