GameShark | Boardgames | Features | Cracked LCD 2.7: Essen Editorial

Maybe it’s just a bad year—the past couple has seen a lot of great Essen releases: CA$H & GUN$, RETURN OF THE HEROES (and expansions), and THROUGH THE AGES for example. But every year I’ve grown less interested in what’s come out there and I suspect that a lot of newbie gamers will either see their interest in Essen taper off or they’ll put their jobs, relationships, bank accounts, and even lives on the line to get there annually. Five or six years ago I followed every report and kept a list of what I was interested in trying. After a while, it became apparent that there were certain weird negative trends (like how ten designers working for five different publishers all show up with similarly themed games—this year it’s an Asian thing, last year Vikings) and a gradual shift away from heavier games to shorter, 45 minute exercises.

I guess Essen just isn’t interesting to me as part of the hobby anymore. Call me jaded, call me a crank, but it just doesn’t have that aura anymore. Repeat attendees are even reporting that the second-hand dealers have been stripped clean of all the really cool stuff over the years. Ugly, crudely produced, slightly-better-than- handmade games are getting more attention than they deserve from hardcore spielfrieks desperate to find some new, unpolished “gem” before any one else does.

Best. Idea. Ever.

The games look, feel, and sound the same as the ones from last year. Part of it is invariably the decline of innovation and ingenuity in the European game design community and the return to prominence of American style games, which are represented at Essen but pretty much in the shadow of the new product rolled out by the European firms. And another part of it may just be that I am a jaded crank after all. Besides, who needs all these new games anyway when we’ve got DUNE, CIVILIZATION, MAGIC REALM, SETTLERS OF CATAN, and TWILIGHT IMPERIUM? That’s a lifetime of great gaming in five titles…only one of which was released at Essen in the first place.

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Previous Cracked LCDs:

Version 1.0
Version 1.1

Version 1.2
Version 1.3

Version 1.4
Version 1.5
Version 1.6
Version 1.7
Version 1.8
Version 1.9

Version 2.0
Version 2.1
Version 2.2

Version 2.3

Version 2.4

Version 2.5

Version 2.6

Volume One of this series of books does a grand job of introducing gaming to the masses, but offers a lot of familar information for gamers already in the know.