Yeah, it’s the time of year when everybody rolls out their “Best of” lists and you look at them and wonder what corner the writers bought their crack. Either that or you start to wonder if there is some sort of shadowy consortium that ensures that no two lists are entirely different. As one of the writers here at Gameshark.com, I was privy to the discussion, debate, and verbal arm-wrestling that went on behind the scenes as these folks hammered out their end-of-year lists and let me tell you: I’m glad that I’m the only person writing about board games here. That makes me judge, jury, and executioner unless editor extraordinaire Bill Abner drops the axe on me like he did on that violent, nasty thirty page tirade I handed him that eventually became the first Cracked LCD column.

Actually, 2007 is interesting for me because it’s the first year in a long time where I think I played fewer new games than I did repeat plays of old favorites or some of the really better titles that came out this year. So there’s a lot of really interesting stuff I have yet to even play like NAPOLEON’S TRIUMPH, the follow-up to the devastatingly great BONAPARTE AT MARENGO or the latest Columbia Games block wargame ATHENS AND SPARTA. I think 2007 was definitely a year of extremes—games released this year tended to be either really great or completely horrible. There’s definitely a transition taking place in the hobby as the domination and prevalence of the abstract European-style family game is giving way to more conflict-oriented, interactive, and thematic games. This is a good thing, particularly when the designers of such games incorporate the best elements of classic Eurogames into new designs.

But at any rate, let’s get on with the awards show, shall we?

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: 1960: THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT

I probably had unrealistically high expectations for 1960, designed by one half of the TWILIGHT STRUGGLE design team and some other guy I’ve never heard of. The pitch was that this game would use a card-driven wargaming system to depict the 1960 presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. It’s a great subject for a game and I thought there would be some really interesting gameplay considering that TWILIGHT STRUGGLE is one of the best games of the past ten years. What we got, however, is some of the concepts of the previous game watered down with an uncomfortable level of abstraction and a whole lot of shuffling wooden cubes back and forth. The cards just didn’t have the variety of actions that the previous game offered and the narrative overall felt weak. It’s not a bad game though, and I think there are some interesting design ideas on display (like the way the debates are depicted) but it just isn’t much fun and it simply feels like too much was abstracted in order to appeal to gamers who favor mechanics over theme.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: CUTTHROAT CAVERNS

In general, I despise MUNCHKIN-style games and whenever I see a small publisher card game with a humorous fantasy theme obviously designed to cash in on RPG in-jokes I generally excuse myself to avoid being accidentally associated with its existence. Smirk and Dagger’s CUTTHROAT CAVERNS and its expansion DEEPER AND DARK really surprised me; it’s an obnoxious, raucously fun game centered on the concept of “kill stealing” with some very well done take that-style gameplay. It’s definitely not a game for those who hate randomness, socializing, or beating up on the leader therefore the wrong group can turn a session of the game into a nightmare. But with rowdy gamers who like aggressively mean-spirited fare, it’s a nice surprise and a good way to lure the MUNCHKIN crowd back to sanity. The game gets extra points when narrated by ARKHAM HORROR designer Richard Launius- “You gotta watch out for those Boogens, they’ll get ya!”

MASS-MARKET GAME OF THE YEAR: STAR WARS ORIGINAL TRILOGY RISK

Look, I’m just as surprised as you likely are that a RISK game showed up here but this has got to be the best edition of RISK published to date, a quick-playing and tremendously narrative version of the classic system dressed up with Star Wars theme. And make no mistake, it’s the Right and Proper Star Wars that we all know and love despite its overwhelming lack of Midchlorians. I think I had more fun playing STAR WARS ORIGINAL TRILOGY RISK at a Eurogamer-centric event, getting dirty looks while we made Star Wars noises, cheering and jeering die rolls, and being utterly obnoxious, than I did playing any other game in 2007. I know the game actually came out late in 2006 but there wasn’t a better mass market game released this year so I’m grandfathering it in. It’s a fun, easy to play game that really has a lot of surprisingly neat design for a mass-market game- don’t be tricked into thinking that it’s just a cash-in.