Wednesday Wonders

Tuesday games were moved to Wednesday again this week and it was decided to have a look at some of the new games acquired lately. Crabro had produced a list of them with ratings and suggested that we work up the list from worst to best (as decided by Boardgamegeek rating).

We first had a look at Highland Clans (a.k.a. MacRobber) which languishes at a sub-5000 rank with a rating of 5.73. Probably not a terrible game by any means but it really didn't appeal to either of us so we decided to move on.

The first one played was Ming Dynasty (current rank 2741). Although we agreed that it was not a bad game at all, by lunchtime we felt that we had been working hard rather than having fun.

This is a game with nice wooden components and a straightforward mechanic but appeared to us to have no particular feeling of theme at all and consequently we had been playing quite a complex abstract. Not in itself a bad thing perhaps but the fact that "hard work" had entered both our minds was enough to make us decide to "move this one" also.

After lunch we continued with Utopia which is at an altogether more respectable sub-2000 rank. First impressions as we began to "punch" it was that the components were gorgeous. It was certainly a winner on wow-factor.

Having played it we were both agreed that it wasn't a bad game either. Coupled with the likelihood that our other gaming friends are likely to want to play it at least once when they see the nice bits, we decided this one was, at least for now, a keeper.

Neither of us were very sure that we had totally grasped the nuances of the rules and both resolved to read up some more before playing again. As it stood though Crabro was the winner by, I think, eight points having won Ming by a much greater margin.