Culture

Beyond Checkers and God of War, Too: Board Games That Don’t Suck

by Adam Z. Berenstain, SUNY Cortland, March 3, 2008

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Today we live in a brave new world of entertainment. From the tiny screens of our iPods and cell phones to the 30” HDTVs in our living rooms, electronic games pervade our free time in ways undreamed of back in the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System. However, while video games have gone forth and multiplied, another kind of game has quietly endured and evolved. I’m talking about board games.

Wait, keep reading! Let me clarify: sure, there are board games like Monopoly that you’ve probably played a hundred times before in whatever variation of “family game night” you grew up with. I’m not talking about those games. I’m talking about cool board games.

Zombies!!! is a game for two to six players trapped in a city full of the living dead. Players (represented by plastic “Shotgun Guy” figures) begin in the center of town, and the object of the game is to make it to the helicopter waiting to whisk one person to safety, leaving everyone else to the undead (represented by dozens of plastic zombie figures in various states of decay). On his or her turn, each player sets down a new map tile that expands the city, so the Zombies!!! board is different every time you play. Most map tiles are city streets, but some are buildings like the Hospital, the Gas Station, and the Army Surplus Store (you never know when the vital Helicopter Pad tile will show up). Special buildings contain Bullet and Life tokens that you’ll need to collect if you’re going to survive the game. Furthermore, each player has to set a certain number of zombie figures on each new tile, so the army of the living dead is always growing, just like a George Romero movie.

When you take the battle to the living dead, you’ll roll a die to determine whether you blow the zombie away or if he takes a bite out of you (you can add Bullet tokens to your die roll to boost firepower). Each bite costs you a Life token, and too many bites “kill” you and send you back to the center of town. Cards in Zombies!!! add another wrinkle to gameplay. Throughout the game players draw cards, some of which help you (the “Grenade” card lets you wipe out several zombies in one shot) and some screw over other players (playing “Zombie Master” lets you surround an opponent with the living dead). In Zombies!!! you have to not only watch out for swarms of undead, but your fellow players, too.

Memoir ’44 is for the war history and strategy buffs. The game is set during World War II, and is for two players only. Each player picks the Axis or Allies, and guides his or her forces to victory in simulations of actual WWII battles. The game comes with instructions for playing sixteen different scenarios. The game board is double-sided, showing a map of a field on one side and a beach scene on the other. Before play cardboard terrain tiles (hills, towns, forests, roads, etc.) are placed on the map per instructions unique to each scenario. Each player then places their plastic tanks, army men, and artillery figures on the game board, also according to the scenario’s instructions. A Memoir ’44 board studded with plastic tanks poised to unleash hell is a sight to behold.

Setup of the game can take a while, but once begun Memoir ’44 is fast and furious, usually lasting a little over half an hour. Battles can be won by taking out enemy units, capturing strategic points (usually towns or bridges) or a combination of both. Each player gives his or her troops orders with cards. Most cards let you issue an order to your troops in one of three sections of the board: the right, middle, or left flank. Once you order a unit (a group of tanks, say) you can move the unit a set number of spaces on the map and shoot at enemy troops if they’re close enough. Once you fire on the enemy, dice determine if you hit and how bad enemy casualties are. Certain terrain conditions aid or interfere with movement and combat so you’ll have to plan your orders carefully. Different units have different advantages and disadvantages, too, and it takes a savvy tabletop general to juggle the game’s variables to win the war for his or her side.

Carcassonne is one of the simplest board games I’ve come across, and it might also be my favorite. Carcassonne is a city in Southern France that’s famous for its medieval buildings, and the game casts two to five players as medieval urban planners who must design and populate the landscape. Players create the game board by placing tiles showing colorful representations of fields, roads, sections of buildings, and other features. The only rule is that tiles must be placed logically; a field cannot sit in the middle of a building.

As the game progresses, structures grow in size and are completed (a building is completed when its outer walls meet, a road is completed when it links one area to another, and so forth). Here’s where things get interesting: each player also has a small collection of wooden “followers,” little people that players can use to claim sections of Carcassonne. Most followers remain on the game board until a structure is complete, so players must think carefully before committing them. For instance, players can set a follower on a road tile, and when the road is completed the player gets a certain amount of points depending on how large the road (or building, etc.) gets to be. Players can also place followers on empty fields. These “farmers” stay on the board for the duration of the game, but earn you points for every completed building touched by their field -- whether the buildings are yours or not. At the end of the game, the player with the highest score wins. Since each follower placed is a bet on how big a structure you think you can build, and placement of most tiles is out of your hands, Carcassonne can become a pretty cutthroat place to live.

By all means fire up Halo 3 when you need a break from studying and rock Sonic the Hedgehog on your iPod if it gets you through a day of school. But next time friends drop by your apartment consider doing something different. A good board game can get people together and talking--and talking smack--like nothing else. Instead of a TV remote or gamepad, pick up a pair of dice instead. Games like Zombies!!!, Memoir ’44, and Carcassonne are helping to drag board games out of grandma’s house and maybe, just maybe, into twenty-first century college life.

If you want to look over any of these games in person, stop by Play the Game, Read the Story at the Syracuse Mall or Providence Hobbies in Ithaca. To learn more about the brave new world of board games, visit boardgamegeek.com.

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