So here is the rest of the guide for your reference! I purchase most my games either used from the www.boardgamegeek.com marketplace (see if a game is available by going to the game's page. The links for people selling will be halfway down on the left with little country flags to tell you where the seller is), or I use www.thoughthammer.com which has always provided great service, even while overseas. Other options are www.funagaingames.com which has a huge selection but is about 10% more expensive or ebay.

Games for the whole family
1-1.5 hours

Jamaica: Pirate themed game which has the rare quality of strategic play for adults while kids over 6 can pretty much understand the concepts. It is a race around an island where you try to end up with the most gold. But, to move you will need to use gold, food and may even need some cannons on board if you end up on the same spot as another player. Best quality components of any game and terrific artwork.






Aquaretto or Zooloretto: We have Zooloretto and the kids really enjoy it. Another game that has enough to keep adults interested while the kids have fun. Aquaretto reportedly adds rules which make it even more strategic but not necessarily more difficult to understand. The basics in this game are trying to collect like animals to place in your zoo to score points. So it is a "set-collection" game with some other interesting mechanics thrown in.






Pirate's Cove: Another Pirate game that is fun for all. Plays best with 5 players. The best part of this game is customizing the equipment on your ship for fighting. Great use of theme. A little random and chaotic but definitely family fun.





Sorry Sliders: This was a surprise this year. As a poster on a forum said, "I maintain my observation that a game this dumb should not be this fun" This is available in Target or Wal-Mart for 15 bucks. Short (10 minutes), fun and entertaining for the whole family. It really has nothing to do with the crappy game "Sorry!" except the look of the pieces.






Powerboats*: Another race game. I picked this up at Essen and I think it will be available in the states soon. Really cool idea and the rules make you feel like you are controlling powerboats that our real hard to get going the right way if get going to fast.







Niagara: Cool components and use of the box lid make this unique. Try to get the valuable crystals in your canoe without falling over the falls. Unrealistically, other players will try to affect the current of the river to mess you up.









Thebes: The perfect Indiana Jones themed game with a unique mechanic of using time points instead of money. This is a lot of fun for a family and kids love seeing what treasures they pull out of the cool cloth bags (that is how you dig for treasure).








Games for 3, 4, 5 adults (more complex fair like Catan)

2-3 hours

El Grande: (5 players recommended): Still my favorite game. A pure European-style game of area control. Easily taught. The only downside is that I really do not like playing with anything but 5 players. I even replaced the giant phallic symbol of the king with a cool pewter king I got in Germany! I guess that will ruin all the good laughs every time we pull out "El Grande"!






Stone Age: A new game this year that has gained a healthy following. It scratches the same itch as the farm game Agricola that I posted yesterday but is a bit simpler to learn for a group. Really cool components.









Acquire: An investment game that is ten times better than Monopoly and has been around since 1962. Try to get the 1999 Avalon Hill Big Box version (pictured) off ebay but there is a 2008 reprint that uses less satisfactory components that is readily available.




Cuba: A game that is a redesign of the venerable Puerto Rico. Cool looking and many different strategies to win.
















Imperial: Imagine "Risk" where the player with the largest investment in a nation gets to control it that turn. Oh yeah and no dice! I love this game. It is hard to grasp the concepts at first but this is one of the best strategy games ever made.









Lost Cities: the board game: Much simpler than the rest in this category. This won the Game of the Year in Germany; the prestigious "Spiel de Jahres" award. It was called Keltis in Germany but was rethemed for the American audience as a board game version of the first game I mentioned in this guide. This makes sense because it really is Lost Cities for more than 2 people. And that is a good thing!





So that wraps up the guide. If there is anything you want me to bring up to try for this Christmas break, let me know by Thursday night. Otherwise, I hope this is a guide that you can reference for ideas in the future.

Mike