2004 Review
Almost every other boardgames blogger has done a year review, so I had better not be left behind. Looking at the Five and Dime lists at Spielfreiks and rec.games.board, I get a real feeling of gaming inferiority. How do these people get to play so many games? On top of my work, sport, friends and family I can only squeeze in a few hours a week.
My gaming year has been wrapped up in this blog. I started it around Christmas 2003. After two blogging software fiascos, I have ended up with WordPress, and I am very happy with it. It just works. I am enjoying the boardgames blogging scene in general. Much more signal and less noise than anywhere else.
It is interesting to see how Spielfreiks and rec.games.board have gone downhill this year, as people have flooded to the Geek. In the last six months of 2003, Spielfrieks had 10,375 messages. The last six months of 2004 had 5,849. I do not know how rec.games.board has performed in comparison, but I get the impression it has been damaged less than Spielfreiks. I suspect Spielfriek’s accidental change to a private group, making subscription harder, has caused some of this decline. However, the main reason has been the quality of the tools for discussion at the Geek. GeekJournals, GeekLists and discussion at individual game entries have taken over. I would like to think blogs have had an impact, but I doubt it.
From a personal viewpoint, my own gaming group has suffered as my most enthusiastic local gaming friend has left town. On the other hand, every few months I get to go to visit my friend Michael and play all the latest games. He is always ahead of the curve. It is a longish drive, but worth it for tough competition and good company.
Were far more games released in 2004 than before? It certainly seems that way. I have always been amazed at how many games are released onto the market, but last year’s Essen was unbelievable. I would be fascinated to see statistics of the numbers of games released at Nuremberg and Essen combined over the years. Since I started in the hobby, only in 2000, releases seem to have escalated exponentially.
Onto the games I discovered this year:
Hits
It was a good year for big games. More importantly, it was also a good year for Play-By-Web and Play-By-Email. Overall, Age of Steam is my Game of the Year.
- Puerto Rico Expansion: Every Puerto Rico owner should get a copy.
- Cosmic Eidex: My current favourite three-player card game. Full of options to explore.
- Tichu: My current favourite four-player card and partnership game. Any game my wife enjoys, I enjoy.
- Die Macher: Big and beautiful.
- Elfenland: I am sure this will be a winner for my entire group.
- Age of Steam: My proudest win of the year was PBeM against four experienced Age of Steam players, on only my second game.
- War of the Ring: I still cannot decide if this is fatally flawed or a work of genius. I suspect flawed genius.
- Wizard Kings: Although theme lets this down, overall I think this is a better game than War of the Ring. There are currently big debates about the future shape of the rules. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.
- Twixt: Definitely my favourite abstract, although Dvonn is another good discovery. I love how much action is squeezed into so few moves. Excellent at Little Golem.
Misses
Light and middleweight games suffered. I think I am getting a little jaded.
- Executive Decision: Too slow, but could be developed into an excellent modern German game.
- Bang: Fun the first two times, but after that, it choked.
- Ivanhoe: My group decided to adopt this as their favourite game, partly because I was bored of it. That is how to guarantee games nights go down in frequency…
I aim to consolidate my collection. I want to weed out the average games and bring in stronger replacements, or serious classics. There is no space for mediocrity – that sounds almost like David Brent. I might try the Board Game Geek’s new trade manager. It is a pity I cannot search British traders only.
Games I plan to buy
- San Juan
- Torres
- El Grande
2004 was a good year. I love gaming and have no intention of stopping soon.
I suspect Spielfriek’s accidental change to a private group, making subscription harder, has caused some of this decline.
I have asked to join Spielfriek’s about 3 times now – with no response. Hard for people to be involved if they aren’t allowed to join.
Matthew
10 Jan 05 at 00:38
Tell me your email address, and I’ll ask at Spielfreiks for you.
Incidentally, if you have a newsreader, like Outlook Express (or the far superior Xnews), check out http://news.gmane.org. They do a feed, so you can read it there. It will not fix your membership problem though.
Alternatively, you can read it here: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.games.spielfrieks or just go to rec.games.board, which I prefer anyway.
Iain
10 Jan 05 at 10:28
Good review. Can’t argue with any of it. I read the Geek far more than I used to and it is now the place I go to post specific game info or questions where as in the past I would have used Spielfrieks. I dont bother with rec.games.board at all now but I still read Spielfrieks mainly because I value the opinions of many who post on there. If they disappeared then I would probably drop it.
I don’t have/don’t want a blog so I’ll cheekily use yours to give my view of 2004:
2004 was an excellent year for new games – for me the best in the last 4 or 5 years. A number of serious games are likely to stay on the gaming table for some time to come: Struggle of Empires, Goa, Maharaja, Power Grid and St. Petersburg, with honourable mentions to Tahuantinsuyu and the Sceptre of Zavendor. Plus we got 4 new Warfrog maps for Age of Steam. Essen threw up generally mediocre games presumably because most of the good stuff had already been released. I did come back with a few real heavyweights that haven’t seen much light yet though. Antiquity and 7 Ages both need more plays before a final decision but either or both may turn out to be among my top three of all time and Revolution remains untouched – it looks a bit dry and possibly outdated but I just couldn’t resist a new Francis Tresham game. Here’s my ‘awards’ for 2004.
Worst game: YES (not to be confused with YS) – I managed to win this before any of my opponents even had a turn. How a company like Ravensburger can put out such a fundamentally flawed game is amazing.
Most over-hyped game: Oltramere – an Ok game but nothing special. I think it only got such a good buzz around Essen because there wasn’t too much else at that sort of level competing against it.
Most disappointing game: War of the Ring, by a long way. Poor production, a desire to stick to the books at the expense of gameplay, and a game that is way too long for what it is left me very cold with this which is a shame as I really wanted to like it and I think the Hunt/Fellowship mechanism is excellent. There is a chance I may be persuaded otherwise but there’s too much other stuff that I know I like competing for limited table time that it probably won’t get that chance.
Best ‘older’ game: Age of Steam: Nearly all my games have been PBEM this year but this has introduced me to new players and hence new styles of play. I still think this has got everything and there’s so much replayability in the base game but the diversity of the additional maps just means that I can’t see myself ever getting bored with it.
Best new game, Runner-Up: Ticket to Ride. Probably overtaken Settlers as the game I will use to introduce non-gamers. Beautifully produced, scales well for 2-5 players and the element of luck around the ticket draw is actually just right for this length and weight of game.
Best new game: San Juan. I’ve played this over 50 times in 9 months when no other game has reached double figures. A card game like this is bound to have a luck of the draw element but there are clear ways to alleviate this and the fact that there are several ways to win means you can adapt your strategy to suit the cards you draw. I keep saying such and such a card is too strong and then change my mind after a few more games. I think this is a good sign of a very good game which is, in my opinion (and this is possibly more sacrilegious than me saying War of the Ring is not the best game ever), more fun – and therefore better – than Puerto Rico.
Michael Longdin
10 Jan 05 at 14:03
Thanks Michael.
I still don’t agree with you about War of the Ring, although there is some truth in what you say.
The European version of Ticket to Ride might tempt me, although I am likely to recommend it to someone asking what game to buy, rather than actually getting it myself.
I am really looking forward to getting into San Juan.
Iain
10 Jan 05 at 17:46
Iain
Nice review. 2004 has been a pretty good year for games. I’ll have to think about doing my own review but the games that really stood out for me were Ticket To Ride, San Juan, Memoir ‘44 and Coda/ DaVinci Code (the last for being such an accessible deduction game that anyone can get into). I’m still hopeful that Reef Encounter and Struggle of Empires will shine but I still haven’t been able to play either so far.
BGG is still great although it has been difficult to filter out the good stuff from the dross this year. Spielfrieks is still ok but is not a patch on what it was a while ago. Rec.games.board is now only good for the very occasional item.
Well, after dithering for ages, I have now started experimenting with WordPress following your recommendation. You can see my initial attempts at http://www.spiel.co.uk and any suggestions would be very welcome. I’ll need to start publicising it a bit soon as well so watch out for the odd post on Spielfrieks and rec/uk.games.board.
Garry
Garry Lloyd
10 Jan 05 at 22:46
I forgot to mention how the Geek is filling up with rubbish these days. The War of the Ring page is almost impenetrable.
Your blog looks very nice! You will not regret WordPress. You are straight into my blogroll…
Iain
11 Jan 05 at 10:35