It's still winter for a few more weeks, and if you're trapped in your dorm on a weekend, there's no better way to spend your time with friends (besides getting drunk off your asses) than gathering to play one of your favorite board games.
This week, I'll be reviewing some hidden treasures that are definitely worth trying out!
Clue: Master Detective (1988)
Who hasn't played Clue? There's a reason it has endured all these years: it's a really good game.
For one brief moment, Parker Brothers decided to make it even better. It flopped at the time, but it has now become one of the most desirable vintage board games in existence.
There are four more suspects that you can fight over when deciding who to play: Sergeant Gray, Miss Peach, Madame Rose and Monsieur Brunette.
You can actually go outside of the mansion, and then there are the snoop spaces, which allow you to look at a player's card when you land on it with no guessing required.
The game is long out of print, but you might be able to find it at a reasonable price at a thrift store or a flea market.
Whatever you do, make sure it's NOT the Clue VCR game, which is absolutely horrendous.
90210 Entangle! (1991)
We're now getting to a point where 90210 references are getting, well, a little dated.
But I'm a huge nostalgia buff, and when I learned there was a 90210 board game based on Twister, well, it just couldn't get any better.
The game is a little complicated. The mat looks nothing like the classic Twister mat. It's a huge picture of the original cast of 90210, Luke Perry and all.
The spinner has two arrows and two circles. The inner circle has body parts and the outer circle has the names of 90210 cast members.
You put the body part where the small arrow lands on the cast member where the big arrow lands.
Again, this has become a little tough to find, but if you find it on eBay, you won't be paying much.
Please tell me that someone is going to go out and get this!
Settlers of Catan (present)
A friend introduced me to this a few years back. This is a thinking person's board game.
You basically set out to conquer a fictional island (Catan) and use the island's natural resources to establish trade routes and centers of production.
This may not be the most exciting concept for a game, but rest assured, it is extremely addictive with tons of replay value. It's been one of the hottest-selling board games for the last 10 years.
The best part is that you can actually expand the game with Seafarers of Catan and Cities and Knights of Catan.
Pretty soon, you really feel as though you are in control of a civilization on a much deeper level than the one experienced in Monopoly.
And don't worry if you're not a big gamer. When I played this game for the first time, it felt like I had been playing it for years.
So the next time you're bored on a Saturday night, try something a little different than your usual board game fare, courtesy of This Week in Geek!
