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Board Game Reviews and Buying Guide:What's better than a night playing board games with your kids? Ok, it may not be the funnest time of your life, but having new and innovative games to play keeps things from getting boring is the key. Most children start with the basic board games like Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Sorry, Operation, Checkers, Trouble and Disney games. As their ability to think and strategize becomes better, you can move them on to games like Battleship, Monopoly, Yahtzee, and Othello. When I grew up the Game of Life and Stratego were big hits along with Risk and Trivia Pursuit. The great thing about games is that they are made for kids and adults of all levels and broken into categories like strategy games, dice games, mystery games (Clue), party games, family games, word games, and classic games. Most are less than $20 and some of the more popular titles are over $30+. When you think back to all the hours of fun you had from your Monopoly board, the money is usually well spent on board games for the family.
Best Family Board Game:Family games are meant for the entire family to play which means kids of all levels can handle the game. Monopoly board game is the classic of all time with many variations on the game now that it was hard finding the original version in Toys R Us when I looked last week. Monopoly is based on acquiring properties as you go around the board. when you have purchased the entire group of properties, called a monopoly, you can then start putting up houses or hotels for other players to land on. The person with the most monopolies tends to win as they continually take more and more money from their opponents. It's truly a capitalist game with the object of gaining the most wealth and putting your opponents into bankruptcy. It should cost about $20-$25 to buy it. Battleship is a great 2 person game that runs about $15 and the object is to try and sink the other players ships by guessing which quadrant they are located in. Clue ($17) is another fun mystery game the whole family can play the eventual winner being able to guess who killed whom in what room with the correct weapon. The Game of Life ($18) has less strategy than other family games, but is still fun as you wind your way through life (the board) in a car. All the while you get married, have children, spin the chance wheel and get paid. If your kids are older, then let them practice their spelling by playing Scrabble. Scrabble ($25) is truly a classic, yet simple board game where you get 7 letters at a time to construct words by including letters already played on the board. It's very creative and thought provoking and certainly one of the most educational games around.
Strategy Board Game:One of my all-time favorites is Risk ($20), a world domination game which can have up to 6 players vying to conquer the world at once. The board has 6 continents and 42 territories that you must eventually take over to win the game. It can take hours to play, but the strategy is intense as you try to defend your current territories and attack weak countries in an attempt to gain superiority. There are Risk cards and little army pieces that you move around your supply lines from country to country. A new war game of sorts is called Axis and Allies ($35) which pits you in 1942 in World War II where you must not only use military strategy but economic cunning to fight your way to the top. Settlers of Catan ($35) - "requires, strategy, trade, and growth, and is a fast-paced and fun game of peaceful conquest". Another great older strategy game is called Stratego which pits 2 armies against each other on a battlefield. The object of the game is to capture the other opponents flag and gain victory. All the while you will need to have a sharp memory as scouts, marshals and bombs can get in your way. Each game is different, game is for 2 players only.
Education and Learning Board Game:Can you learn while you are having fun playing a board game? Yes you can with games like Rumis, Blokus, Passport to Culture, Brain Quest Geography Game, and Cranium. All these game have different strategies and concepts, but you will be learning something while playing them. Not all games have straight forward facts that you learn like in Passport to Culture, but games that make you think and strategize are just as healthy for your mind and teach you valuable lessons. Parents should try to find games on geography, science, art, literature, and math since those subjects are not covered thoroughly enough in schools. Giving your children a fun environment to learn educational things will give them confidence and an appreciation to learning during their formative years in high school and college.
Best Childs Board Game:If you venture into your local Wal-Mart or Target, you will find all the kids classic board games like Candyland, Sorry, Trouble, and Chutes and Ladders. Most are priced under $15 and the rules are fairly basic in each game to help get kids involved in learning how to play a game with rules. Candyland is fun for most little kids since they travel along a color coated trail leading to "Candyland". Along the way you comes across "candy cards" with special priveleges to move forwards (or backwards) to that spot. Another basic game is Chutes and Ladders where you race your opponent up the board by spinning a wheel to determine how many spaces you move forward. Beware of the chutes that can have you going backwards in a hurry. If you land on a ladder, then take the steps up to the top of the ladder and advance forward. Kids love the nonstop action in this game. Sorry is a touch more strategic and time consuming to play, but still a good game for kids 5 to 7. I try to start my kids on checkers when they are 4 or 5 since it's a universal game that grandparents can play as well as most of their friends. Some kids who catch on to checkers can progress up to chess if you have the patience.
Adult Board Game:Have you ever been to an adult game party. Games like Scrabble, Pictionary, Scene IT, and Trivia Pursuit are fun for grown-ups to play since many let you have teams. Pictionary is probably the funnest with partners and teams trying to guess what you are drawing. Trivia Pursuit was very popular in the late 1980's and early 90's, but lost interest. Scrabble is a great 2 to 4 person adult game that will test your ability to come up with words that are spelled correctly and fit into the playing board. Although Blokus is listed above in education games, we feel it's also a great after dinner game if you have some friends over. At first the game seems simple with different shaped pieces to put down on the board, but the subtleties of this game are many as opponents try to block your maneuvers and you try to expand into new sections of the board. I have found that Blokus is not only addictive, but it's kind of like golf in that you find yourself talking about the game a few hours after you played it.
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