(Rio Grande Games)

$25 to 30

Available at Strategies Games

Okay, let’s run down the list of all the things Carcassonne isn’t.

It’s not the time you were forced to play Pictionary with your extended family and ended up on a team with your Great Aunt Bea, whose only guess for anything was: “Is it a sandwich? It is, I can tell. That’s a sandwich. Sandwich! Why are you still drawing? I said sandwich already.”

It’s not the time your nine-year-old brother utterly destroyed you at Monopoly in less than 20 minutes, nor is it you winning at Trivial Pursuit and having your mom say, “Well, you’re just good at memorizing useless information.”

And it sure is not some Game of Life session with your parents. You know, the type where they put the game pieces representing children into the cars in the exact order they gave birth to you and your siblings, then making a goofy face at the other when they get one too many, saying, “Oops! Honey, there’s something I need to tell you!”

Carcassonne is none of these things. It is a board game, but it’s not the type regularly featured during a humiliating and rigidly enforced family games night. In fact, if you give them a chance, a lot of board games can be quite fun away from the parental nest. And perhaps the best game to convince you of this is Carcassonne.

So what’s the game about? It’s essentially a tile-based strategy game in which you take turns constructing a medieval countryside with cities, roads, farms, etc. You try to daunt your opponents through strategic tile placement, while increasing your own holdings and racking up points for each completed building project. Simple, right?

So here are the pluses:

+ You can learn the rules in about 10 minutes.

+ It’s suitable for between two and five players (a boon, since many games require a minimum of three players).

+ It’s cheap—a fair number of the old board games standards push between $30 to $40 these days, and the elaborately large and cool ones will run you $80 or more (the World of Warcraft tabletop game—yes, there is one—comes in at around $100).

+ Carcassonne can be played in less than an hour, so you can fit it into your busy schedule, or maybe play best out of three.

+ You can buy loads of fun expansion packs for the game.

+ Above all, it’s fun; I can’t quantify this, but it is.

If you can get past what prejudices you might have about board games and the linked embarrassment of mankind (not to mention the social lives of adolescents), then Carcassonne is an ideal first step into a larger, better world. Inside you’ll find amusement, good times and a place where tabletops aren’t just for emotional de-pantsings at the hands of a Grade Fiver with a Pop-o-matic bubble.

NEWS:

_Star Wars just celebrated its 30th birthday. It’s the first movie I remember seeing in the theatre—that means I am old.

_Also in birthdays, Herge would recently have celebrated his 100th. Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson just announced that they will co-produce a trilogy of CG movies based on the works. Both Spielberg and Jackson will direct one, with the third going to an as-yet unnamed director. Imagine that, photo-realistic CG but with characters that look like they stepped right out of Herge’s books. Billions of blistering blue barnacles, that is going to be amazing. Oh, and for those who are worried about Tintin’s sexual orientation becoming a matter of public record, Herge’s estate has announced there will be no love interests for the investigator. Bashi-bazouks, it’s still raining men!

_And finally, Starcraft 2—motherfucking Starcraft.

JUST RELEASED:

_Fluff up the cushions on your couch and kick back, because there’s at least a good day’s worth of entertainment heading your way. First, pick up the first collection of Warren Ellis’s comic Fell and plough through. Then do the same with the comic adaptation of the Exalted RPG (with the amazing graphics by Udon). At this point your neck is probably starting to hurt, so turn your attention toward your TV for the first season of the Henry Rollins Show. Depending on your feelings toward Hank, this may leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, so follow it with a two season chaser of Jay Stephens’ cartoon Tutenstein. Then, once it’s dark and you no longer have to fear the glowing ball in the sky that burns us, go out and catch Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, because Chow Yun-Fat pirates are too good to stay in for.