The 2017 Good Gift Games
Our resident board-game expert picks the best new games released this year.
games
A collection of 60 issues
The 2016 Good Gift Games
Board games are always the answer. After a dinner party, when conversation dwindles. At family gatherings, when politics loom. When you want to give a good gift, but aren't sure where to start. Begin here, with 10 of the best from 2016.
The 2015 Good Gift Games
Give someone the right board game, and you're offering easy access to endless fun. Choose incorrectly, and you're giving misery in a box. Start here instead, with the best board games of 2015.
The 2014 Good Gift Games
Board games are a gift that keeps on giving—the best of the bunch provide hours of fun for years on end. But when a new crop of great games arrives every year, how can you choose? This is how.
Back to Skol
NFL star Randy Moss is now a high school coach. A Vikings fan explains how watching one childhood hero move on with his life helps him say goodbye to another.
Demolish Me
The present-day lust for ruins is nothing new. In fact, it’s nearly as old as any ruins themselves. From a flattened Louvre to Percy Bysshe Shelley, a journey to the dawn of ruin porn.
Poor Sochi
Our Russia hand submits a roll-up of all the corruption, crises, ill-preparedness, highways paved with French luggage, and other #sochiproblems surrounding Putin’s graft-gutted Winter Olympics.
The 2013 Good Gift Games
During holiday family get-togethers, don't risk bringing up a topic everyone's hoping to avoid. Instead, bring a board game and circumvent all conversation. Here are 10 of the best from 2013.
Let Football Live
Cracks are appearing in football’s helmet—injuries to athletes, injuries to the game. For one former high school and college player, the damage has gone too far.
No One Is Innocent
Think baseball today is rotten from drugs and punks? A century ago, things weren’t much better. A brief history of baseball's dark traditions—cheating, substance abuse, obscenity, violence—and the colorful players who brought them to life.
How Der Boss President Changed Baseball
In the late 1870s, baseball was at risk of dying out before it even got started, strangled by a teetotaling, law-abiding, church-going new league. Then a German saloonkeeper in St. Louis got involved.
Games Kittens Play
How to play, how to win, and how to act like you won whether you did or not.
Game Over
The NFL is an emperor with no clothes, no morals, and vaults of gold. As we prepare for Super Bowl XLVII, author Dave Zirin explains how greed and corruption have ruined the game, endangered players, and fleeced the public.
The 2012 Good Gift Games
Oh look, it's the holidays and time to interact with humans again. Thankfully, there are board games to facilitate or replace conversation. Here are 10 of the year's best to get you started.
Coming to a Theater Near You
With blockbusters like “Snow White and the Huntsman,” “Zombie Overkill,” and “Yahtzee: Alien Invasion,” it’s already a smash hit for summer movies. But film buffs know Summer 2013 will be even better—and we’re not just talking about Jerry Bruckheimer’s live-action “Hungry Hungry Hippo Apocalypse.”
The 2011 Good Gift Games
The problem with a trip down memory lane is that it might strand you in Candyland. Here are 10 new games well worth remembering.
PAX Primer
Every year, tens of thousands of gamers descend on Seattle to attend a convention that began as a webcomic, and has grown into the epicenter of gaming culture. An account from this year's event, which encompassed nearly every imaginable game genre—and a few never before imagined.
From the Mixed-Up Files of the New York Public Library
As some Christians prepared for the Apocalypse, 500 questers spent Friday night locked inside the New York Public Library with game designer Jane McGonigal.
State of Play
Does your minor want to be a miner? How about a McNugget cook? Welcome to KidZania, a revolutionary theme park coming soon to the U.S. that lets kids play at corporate-sponsored employment.
What Is a Career Move
Following his triumphant appearance on Jeopardy, IBM's Watson supercomputer strikes a deal to replace Charlie Sheen on CBS's hit comedy Two and a Half Men.
The 2010 Good Gift Games
Presenting the year's best board games, all of which must be easy to learn, quick to play, and exciting for non-gamers.
Oh, the Games Adults Play Now
Children play games for fun. Adults play games to crush and humiliate. An analysis of behavior on the grown-ups’ playground.
Gaming Confidence
MIKE Deri Smith summarizes recent news, studies, and gaffes concerning overconfidence, from competitive running to the N.F.L. draft, even socialist firemen.
The 2009 Good Gift Games
This holiday season, your loved ones could play Operation: "Death Panel" Edition, or you could give them a game where somebody besides the government wins.
The Game of Love
Anyone who says video games shouldn't appeal to adults, let alone women, has never flirted with General Carth Onassi. Exploring a virtual courtship.
Cloud of Atlases
Maps without legends may not be immediately informative, but determining what they represent is extremely fun. If you're into that kind of thing, here's a game for you.
A Common Nomenclature for Lego Families
Thousands of different Lego exist, yet when your seven-year-old asks for “a clippy bit,” you know exactly what to hand him. A breakdown of the atoms of a Lego universe.
Your Final Lay
Of the free games included with Windows, none is more treacherous than Spider Solitaire. In the final installment, the master sets the apprentice free.
Adventure Capital
It's risky business, this adventuring, and best not undertaken by those bereft of bravery or collateral.
How to Play Magic: The Gathering
Those who can't do, learn. In this installment of our series in which the clueless apprentice with the experts, we learn lands, creatures, and spells from Magic great Jon Finkel.
Prune Versus Plum
Of the free games included with Windows, none is more treacherous than Spider Solitaire. In the latest installment, the apprentice loses faith while the master eats breakfast.
Are We Not Men?
Of the free games included with Windows, none is more treacherous than Spider Solitaire. In the latest installment, the apprentice gnashes teeth, rends hair.
The Initiation
Of the free games included with Windows, none is more treacherous than Spider Solitaire. In the latest installment, the master assesses the first hand.
Your First Lay
Of the free games included with Windows, none is more treacherous than Spider Solitaire. In the second installment of a new series, the master sets the tutelage in motion.
The Opening Gambit
In the pantheon of free computer games included with Windows, one strikes fear into the hearts of competitors: Spider Solitaire. In the first installment of a new series, the student addresses the master.
The 2008 Good Gift Games
This holiday season, rather than hock what's left of your 401(k) for Starbucks gift cards, gather friends and family around a cozy, non-energy-dependent board game.
And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The
You may rock the karaoke, you may even have impressed the judges on American Idol, but you don't know lyrics until you've seen them in alphabetical order.
Deified and Demagogued
Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away this week. A gaming enthusiast remembers how the discovery of a game opened a new world of imagination and fun.
The Most Competitive Man Alive
Recounting lessons from a first Nintendo, particularly as taught by the highs and lows of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.
The 2007 Good Gift Games
As long as you've got two to four friends, that's all you need for a fun afternoon of playing board games. Oh, except for a board game that's actually fun. Presenting this year's crop of games even sore losers will enjoy.
Wii Feel Your Pain
Nintendo's gaming system has thrilled many players with its motion-sensing capabilities, some to the point of harm.
The 2006 Good Gift Games
Around the holidays there are always two to four players within earshot. Every year dozens of board games are marketed into existence, but some are so fun they stand alone.
Mock the Vote
A month after we asked our readers to create and photograph political campaign signs of their own making, here are our favorites. We announce the winners of our Encyclopedia Brown for District Attorney contest.
Bonding in the Battlemaze
The family that plays together, stays together—unless they’re playing laser tag.
Encyclopedia Brown for District Attorney
Every October, placards touting candidates you've never heard of litter yards and medians across the nation. Our writer creates his own campaign signs, and invites you to do the same for our Election Day photo gallery.
Tricks, and Beer, Are for Kids
Adding another log to the public-relations pyre where several corporations recently burned, an exclusive, damning memo from Toys’R’Us.
Let’s Catch the Wave of Waterboarding!
In a recent White House press conference, Karen Hughes, undersecretary of public diplomacy and public affairs, unveiled an exciting new chapter in the war on terror.
Spinning Into an Early Grave?
The higher you go, the further you have to fall. Kids at Greenbrook Elementary find a dangerous new way to kill time, while a concerned community worries that might not be all that's in jeopardy.
The 2005 Good Gift Games
Being with friends and loved ones is what makes the holidays special--and once you're fed up with that, it's time to humiliate them over a board game. Here are this year's best tabletop entertainments.
On the Occasion of My Retirement From Baseball
Today a short but glorious career on the base-paths drew to a close. And with it, the future of instructional league baseball appears hazy.
Endgame
Thirty-two hours in a van, scavenging for clues and solving puzzles--that's "the Game," a battle of smarts and endurance, and the competition is beyond fierce. Part three: Plowing through the final competitions and racing to the finish.
The Game Is Afoot
Thirty-two hours in a van, scavenging for clues and solving puzzles--that's "the Game," a battle of smarts and endurance, and the competition is beyond fierce. Part two: Cracking codes and scaring the locals.
The Pre-Game Show
Thirty-two hours in a van, scavenging for clues and solving puzzles--that's "the Game," a battle of smarts and endurance, and the competition is beyond fierce. Part one: Wooing the judges and preparing to be crushed.
40 Watts Later
Men buy cars, boats, and watches to make up for their shortcomings; some even purchase stoves. Our food writer looks back on the path that led him to 15,000 BTUs, and consults the Queer Eye staff for advice: What kind of boy goes nuts over an Easy-Bake Oven?
The 2004 Good Gift Games Guide
The last time you played a board game you got the Adam's apple caught in the funny-bone slot and then you couldn't pass GO or collect $200. These days, however, board games are a lot more enticing and fun.
A Dallas, Texas, of the Mind
A new computer game lets players compete to reenact the assassination of President Kennedy--from the vantage point of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Any Given Election
What's a devout gambler supposed to do when the sports landscape looks so bleak? Why, turn to the current presidential race, naturally. A state-by-state rundown on your best bets.
Australia’s Mightiest Heroes
Wherever there is trouble, from marketing to marsupials, they will protect. Super-genius and superhero Dick Smith hatches a new era of costumes and secret identities.
A Game of Skill, Strategy, Chance
Since dating is already a game, it may be unwise to found a relationship on a shared passion for Sorry. Our writer ignores the meta-implications and tries to play by the rules.
New York Solitaire
New York is a filthy place, through and through. So how have we convinced ourselves that it’s such a beautiful city? A game to sort through the trash and find a better life.