Links: Gen Con 2012 Exhibitors Revealed, The Value of Critics & Last Chance for SdJ 2012 Guesses

Game reviewers are not important. We think we are, but we're wrong.

We provide a service, and it's really not that much of a service, all things considered. We're the functional equivalent of your buddy who already owns everything. We tell you 'hey, that was fun,' or 'that game was stupid' or 'playing games designed for children is going to impede our ability to get laid,' but we don't tell you anything you couldn't find out for yourself if you just sat down and played the game. We're about as useful as the corner dry-cleaner, except that the cleaner can press your pants and all we can do is pontificate.

We are not book critics or movie critics. Book and film critics can discuss the various interpretations of themes and dialog. They can discuss hidden symbolism. They can analyze the artistry found in the books and films they review, and draw comparisons to how those things affect us in real life. They can analyze the human condition as presented in the films they watch and the books they read, and then relate those findings to broader themes.

You can't do that in board games. Board games are an industry created by nerds who wanted to play board games. As an artistic medium, board games are slightly less viable than cooking desserts, and slightly more artistic than bowling. Even video games have the capacity to contain more artistic depth than board games. Board games are all about the rules, and rules are inherently not artistic.

[C]ritics perform two essential tasks in the cultural ecosystem – and as with any ecosystem, if you knock out one part, the entire network is at risk of unravelling.

Their first task is simply consumer advice. This has been sniffed at by some critics, like Susan Sontag, but it is their most basic function. There are more films, books, albums and plays out this week than you can experience in a lifetime. Anyone with an internet connection has access to a menu of infinite cultural experiences. You need intelligent people to work through them and recommend the most interesting...

But critics have a deeper role still. When something new and startling comes along, it often baffles us, and we are tempted to drop it, pained, for easier cultural lifting. A great critic can help us to figure out what it going on, and to appreciate it in a richer way. When I saw Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life, I was sure I had seen something extraordinary, but I felt I had barely begun to understand it. It was reading the body of criticism by terrific writers, such as Dana Stevens and Peter Bradshaw that led me deeper in. As film critic Pauline Kael put it: "We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn't fully grasp when we saw the work."

Now that I've played Vegas, I'm calling it the winner over KB (which I highly enjoy) and Eselsbrücke (which I haven’t played). Vegas is lighter than KB – with an explanation time leaning more toward seconds than minutes – and the game play provides lots of "ooh" and "aah" moments as well as taunting of your fellow players when things don't roll the right way for them. With Qwirkle as the 2011 SdJ winner, I think Vegas follows its lead well in terms of being light, accessible and fun. Plus, I'm sure no one would begrudge alea finally hoisting the red poppel and funding a few heavier releases with the money earned from blockbuster sales of Vegas. (Okay, I'm sure many would in fact complain about alea winning for Vegas and not any other release from the past decade, but those folks tend to misjudge what the SdJ is meant to do.)

The only downside for the SdJ committee is whether Vegas can be expanded and thus provide further revenue via poppel licensing, although if Qwirkle can be expanded – and it has been, with the expansion due out at Spiel 2012 – then there's no reason Vegas can't be expanded, too.

As for Hawaii and Village, both are straight-up Eurogame designs that present gamers with interesting-to-explore game systems in an inviting setting. They're not too difficult to learn and play, making them ideal for those who have played the basics and want something more. I prefer Hawaii over Village as the money management and tight competition for goods among players makes the game tougher than Village, while also providing a wider range of set-up variability, which kicks your brain in new directions each game. Village gets my vote, however, as it has the homey thematic edge, just as Thurn & Taxis had the home-turf advantage over Blue Moon City in 2006. Yes, your villagers die and sure, that could be morbid for some, but that aspect of the game also encapsulates the broader cultural outlook in Europe, with people viewing themselves as part of history-in-the-making rather than above it, as seems to be more common in the U.S.