New York Minute Board Game

If you have children who are fans of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and/or who enjoyed the movie New York Minute, this game isn't a horrible one to purchase -- not great, either, but not horrible.

Each player begins New York Minute by choosing a pair of pawns with pictures of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (they're pictured in four different costumes from the movie). At its core, this is a race game -- the goal is to get both of your pawns from the start to the finish before anyone else.

Along the way, you're going to run into some obstacles and you'll also try to impede your opponents' progress. Movement is controlled by subway tokens which you collect and then spend; managing your tokens so that you always have a good option is one of the game's keys. The game track has three kinds of spaces: empty spaces, on which nothing happes; building spaces, on which players draw a card; and orange spaces, on which players draw actions.

The cards include such things as, "Your skirt gets caught in a bike chain. A real hottie comes along to help you out. Get three subway tokens." Actions can be used to help yourself (e.g. moving forward to the next building) or hinder your opponents (e.g. "splitting" a pair of pawns so they must move separately).

New York Minute is not a strategy game, and it's not supposed to be. It's a purely lightweight game designed to appeal to young, mostly female fans of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. But it requires players to make some decisions and is a decent choice for those who don't play many more complex games.