Gaming in Lake Wobegon
Larry Levy reviewed the new games (in two posts). Stripping everything out but the ratings, we have:
Louis XIV – Rating: 9.
Australia – Rating: 7.5.
Ars Mysteriorum – Rating: 7.5.
Heckmeck im Bratwurmeck – Rating: 7.5.
Control Nut – Rating: 7.5
Shadows Over Camelot – Rating: 7.5.
The Adventure League – Rating: 7.5.
Kreta – Rating: 7.
Amazonas – Rating: 7.
Fiese Freunde Fette Feten – Rating: 7.
Der Prestel Schlossgarten – Rating: 7.
Fjorde – Rating: 7.
King Arthur: Das Kartenspiele – Rating: 6.5.
Warriors – Rating: 6.5.
Tower of Babel – Rating (provisional): 6.
Eye to Eye – Rating: 6.
Diamant – Rating: 6.
In the Shadow of the Emperor – Rating: 6.
Submarine – Rating: 5.
Walk the Dogs – Rating: 5.
Manila – Rating: 4.My overall rating of the new games: a little below average.
I wish Larry taught some of my grad school classes.
More generally, ratings on the geek average around what, 6.5? This list averages 6.8. Mind you, Larry and I don’t disagree. I consider this a weak batch, too. It’s just that those numbers look more average than below.
Rating games is fun — everyone hates the other guy’s system .
The Tao of Gaming 
Hey, where’s the love?
Okay, it does look a little weird, particularly since my personal average rating for all the games I’ve ever played is about 6.1. But this wasn’t a random sample. Most of these games are ones that I expected I’d like. More to the point, these were (for the most part) games that debuted at Nuremburg and my experience has been that those games have been more to my liking than Essen releases. Finally, as I said, it wasn’t the overall quality that I objected to, it was the relative scarceness of great games. There was only one game I ranked above 7.5 and most Nuremburgs have done better than that.
For example, in 2004 I gave Goa, Power Grid, Maharaja, San Juan, and Tahuantinsuyu a rating of at least 8. Other highlights from that class included Ticket to Ride, Hansa, Oasis, Dos Rios, Fifth Avenue, Saga, and St. Petersburg. Granted, that was an extraordinary show in an extraordinary year, but there really is no comparison between the groups of games.
Again, I didn’t think it was a bad crop of games (2003, a very weak year for me, probably was worse). But it did fall a bit below average for me, particularly since there really was only one real standout design.
And Brian, if I HAD been your grad school teacher, you can be sure I would have told you to stop playing that Tom Lehmann prototype all day long and start hitting the books! 🙂
Larry
Larry Levy
April 26, 2005 at 2:03 pm
I was reading your reviews nothing jumped out … until that below average line. It’s funny in context. Rating the crop a little below average does make sense. I’d rather have some great games and a bunch of terrible ones than all mediocre games, too.
The love, by the way, is in Friedmann’s new game.
I’ll have you know that during grad school I played Tom’s published games. [Seriously, I played Outpost ~50 times one summer in grad school.]
Brian
April 26, 2005 at 9:37 pm
If it’s all the same to you, Brian, I think I’d rather remain just friends!
Well, Outpost isn’t a Lehmann game [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1491], but I know what you mean. And if Tom evers manages to get his spinoff of Outpost published, I’ll probably be playing it continuously as well. Das Zepter von Zavandor, which is also based on Outpost, is a fine game, but Tom’s version puts it to shame.
Larry Levy
April 27, 2005 at 10:29 am