2008 International Gamers Awards Finalists

The finalists for the 2008 International Gamers Awards, a set of awards which recognizes outstanding strategy board games, have been announced. Games released between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008, were eligible for consideration.

The 10 finalists for General Strategy Games, Multi-Player Category, are:

• Agricola (designed by Uwe Rosenberg; published by Z-Man Games and Lookout Games)
• Brass (Martin Wallace; Warfrog)
• Hamburgum (Max Gerdts; Rio Grande Games and Eggert-Spiele)
• In the Year of the Dragon (Stefan Feld; Rio Grande Games and Alea)
• Kingsburg (Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco; Fantasy Flight Games, Elfinwerks, and Stratelibri)
• Pandemic (Matt Leacock; Z-Man Games and Pegasus)
• Race for the Galaxy (Tom Lehmann; Rio Grande Games, Abacus Spiel and Ystari)
• Stone Age (Michael Tummelhofer; Rio Grande Games and Hans im Glück)
• Tinner's Trail (Martin Wallace; Treefrog and JKLM Games)
• Tribune (Karl-Heinz Schmiel; Fantasy Flight Games and Heidelberger Spieleverlag)

The five finalists for General Strategy Games, Two-Player Category, are:

• 1960: The Making of the President (Christian Leonhard and Jason Matthews; Z-Man Games)
• Cold War: CIA vs. KGB (David Rakoto and Sebastien Gigaudaut; Fantasty Flight Games and Pro Ludo)
• Perry Rhodan: Die Kosmische Hanse (Heinrich Glumpler; Kosmos)
• Power & Weakness (Andreas Steding; JKLM Games and MOD Games)
• Tzaar (Kris Burm; Rio Grande Games and SMART)

The winners will be chosen by a 19-member committee of gamers from around the world.

My thoughts: The overall strength of the nominated games shows how great the past 12 months have been for gamers. A lot of fantastic games have been nominated for the 2008 IGAs. In the multi-player category, Agricola (the #1 rated game of all time at BoardGameGeek.com and my pick as the #3 board game of 2007) is likely to win but I hope that Pandemic (a brilliant cooperative game about fighting worldwide disease outbreaks) gets some attention. Race for the Galaxy (the #9 rated game of all time at BoardGameGeek.com) could win if Agricola falls short for some reason.

In the two-player category, I have only played two of the entries. 1960: The Making of the President and Cold War: CIA vs. KGB. Both are outstanding, but 1960 was my pick as the #1 board game of 2007 so I'm pulling for it.