Game on: Reviews of new board-game offerings

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BY STACY DOWNS / McClatchy Newspapers

With the weather turning nippy, it might be time to bust out the board games.

Fortunately, lots of new games debuted this year to add to the mix. As a board game geek, I test-drove the most interesting ones. Here’s how they played out.

Partini

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Even the case for the party game Partini is fun, designed like an orange suitcase with a handle. (MCT)

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Grade: A+

Even the case for this party game is fun, designed like an orange suitcase with a handle. With Partini, a hipper version of Cranium, you break up into two teams. Coasters are placed facedown. Cards are shuffled. One team draws a coaster, which is one of six categories including charades, humming tunes, guessing words based on clues about what the thing isn’t, and bouncing balls into cups. The team has 45 seconds to accomplish the task.

Our favorite category was “Straight Up.” Paper and pencils are given to all players. The player who draws this category rolls a die of sentence starters such as “I am” and “I don’t.” Other players write sentences about the player who rolled the die. The roller chooses two favorites: the truest and the funniest. If both weren’t written by the die roller’s team, the opposing team wins the coaster.

Equipment: 35 coasters, 430 cards, 1 die, 1 45-second timer, 1 2-ounce container of modeling clay, five plastic cups, two plastic balls, two pads of paper and four pencils.

Object: Be the first team to collect seven coasters.

Play: A game takes a half-hour. Four or more players. Recommended for ages 21 and older.

Price: $33, Parker Brothers

Trivial Pursuit 25th anniversary edition

Grade: A

This version actually improves on the original. It includes easy, medium and hard questions, which allows tweens, parents and baby boomers to play together. It also speeds up the game.

Here are examples of questions:

Easy “Sports & Leisure”: What is the most common color for basketballs? (Orange)

Medium “History”: Who gave the state of Florida its name? (Juan Ponce de Leon)

Hard “Science & Nature”: What is a rhino horn made of? (Keratin)

There’s also a bonus track that adds a twist to the game. If you successfully answer an easy question, you can move only one space. But if you correctly answer a hard one, you can move three. Along the way, you can steal wedges from opponents, which behooves you to answer hard questions instead of easy ones. The bonus track definitely makes the game more cutthroat. Why didn’t they think of it sooner?

Equipment: One game board, 432 question-answer cards, six card holders, six scoring tokens, six track pawns, 36 scoring wedges and one die.

Object: Be the first player or team to fill all six spaces in the scoring token with wedges.

Play: A game takes about an hour. Two to six players. Recommended for ages 12 and older.

Price: $38, Parker Brothers

Agricola

Grade: A-

I had high hopes for this game, the 2008 Spiel de Jahres winner, a special prize for complex games. The first time you play this game, allow yourself a few hours to pore over these rules because they’re definitely intricate, involving an overwhelming number of phases, diagrams and game pieces. I felt annoyed it took so long.

But once you get the gist, it’s a fun game of strategy that is reminiscent of the old Oregon Trail computer game we played on Apple computers in grade school. Agricola is for people who like sophisticated games such as Carcassonne, another award-winning board game that involves creating cities, farms and roads. Agricola is best with more than two players.

Equipment: Nine game boards, 360 cards and many tiles and wooden playing pieces.

Object: You’re a farmer in 17th-century Europe who lives in a wooden shack with a spouse. Each player starts with two playing tokens; you take two actions per 14 turns. You have to grow your family, but not too quickly, because even the next generation must be fed. The winner is the player who has established the best farmyard, based on points.

Play: A game is roughly 30 minutes per player; shorter if played as a family game without the cards. Solo to five players. Recommended for ages 12 and older.

Price: $70, Z-Man Games

Trivial Pursuit Digital Choice

Grade: B

An electronic game pod replaces the deck of trivia cards. The pod comes pre-loaded with six 100-question categories. However, by plugging the game pod into a computer and visiting www.mytpchoice.com, players can download 1,800 more questions. So players can customize each game with the six categories of their choice.

Trivial Pursuit Digital Choice has more than 125 categories available for download, including TV Advertising Slogans, Mythology, Comedic Movies and Restaurants & Chefs. And players can create their own categories and questions, too.

However, the new digital version had a few problems. The game pod instructions aren’t as intuitive as they could be, and we’re fairly adept at technology. Also, we noticed a few typos in the answers. For example, “adam” instead of “madam” for a question about a female breeding horse.

Equipment: Electronic game pod, USB cable, 36 scoring wedges, six scoring tokens, one game board and one die.

Object: Be the first player or team to fill all six spaces in the scoring token with wedges.

Play: A game takes about an hour. Two to six players. Recommended for ages 21 and older.

Price: $50, Parker Brothers (requires three AAA batteries for electronic game pod)

Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition

Grade: B-

I’ve always had a soft spot for Monopoly. Growing up, I loved beating up my younger brother, Randy. So Randy, my husband and I played the new world edition with its chic international hotels (think buildings shaped like pyramids and the Sydney Opera House) and fun tokens (soft pretzels and King Tut). Most exciting was the banking card machine, which meant no cash. How modern.

Unfortunately, some of the new shiny things turned out to be its weak points. Not using cash prevents you from really gauging how your opponents are faring. It also means you can’t tell how much cash is available when you land on Free Parking. And the automated system doesn’t help sharpen kids’ math skills.

Another quibble: Cities are randomly placed around the board. For example, Montreal and Riga, the national capital of Latvia, are the sought-after blue property group. Shouldn’t the properties be united by at least continents?

But it’s still Monopoly, and it’s still enjoyable.

Equipment: One game board, one electronic banking unit, six randomly selected game pieces, six bank cards, title deed cards, Chance cards, Community Chest cards, houses, hotels and two dice.

Object: Be the only player left in the game after everyone else has gone bankrupt.

Play: A game takes hours. Two to six players. Recommended for ages 8 and older.

Price: $39, Parker Brothers (requires two AA batteries for banking machine)