Leadeye

Sushi Go! is an easy-to-teach game, which is so well produced that you’ll have no trouble selling it to new gamers (whether they like raw fish or not). Everyone starts with a hand full of cards. Each turn you pick one to keep and pass the rest on. You do that for three rounds. Most points at the end wins. Mechanically, that’s pretty much it.

Different sushi each score points in different ways (which I won’t explain here). The skill of the game becomes identifying what your opponents are trying to collect. From there you can either try and block them by taking those cards yourself, or try and focus on what they’re not taking and get more points than them.

The game is fast, light and gorgeous. The card stock is great and the rules are easily digestible (pun completely intended). An easy crowd pleaser. Highly recommended.

K2 was designed by a mountain climbing enthusiast and it shows. The game is excellent at providing a feeling of trepidation as you reach the top of the mountain (in a good way).

The goal is simple. Get your two climbers to the top of K2 before the other climbers and you win. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! You’re constantly battling the elements. Every turn you need to decide how balance progress with safety. Simple enough, but then you get towards the top of the mountain and you find that your opponents are blocking your way up, or worse, your way down.

Then there is the weather to contend with. This is where the game really shines (pun somewhat intended). You can choose to play the summer weather deck (easy), or the winter weather deck (hard). Each day’s weather will pose different challenges either on your movement, or your safety. This becomes particularly difficult the higher you climb.

This game features two play boards, a summer board (easy) and a winter board (hard). This allows four possible difficult combinations: Summer board & weather, Summer board & winter weather, winter board & summer weather and winter board with winter weather.

Pros: The game represents its theme well and has lots of difficulty options for casual and serious gamers alike.

Cons: It’s a thematically serious game. It may not hold the interest of pre-teens very well.