2009 Games of the Year Announced

The winners of The Dice Tower Awards for 2009 were just announced this week!

You may wonder why we’re talking about games of the year for 2009 when we’re nearing the end of 2010. Well, for starters the best way to know how good a game is to see how well it holds up with time. Of course in that sense it hasn’t been long enough to know what the truly great games are from 2009.

But I guess that’s all beside the point. The point is that you can now see what’s been rated as the best games published in 2009 as rated by numerous game reviewers around the world.

So congratulations to the winners in all 11 categories of The Dice Tower awards!
We’d also like to tip our hats to all the nominees as well. From our perspective, 2009 was fantastic for gaming. Our game collection grew more in 2009 than it ever had before.

While our family hasn’t tried out a number of the nominated games (like the War Games for example), a lot of our now favorite family games are on The Dice Tower awards list.

Of all the winners, Pandemic On the Brink is our favorite. We really like Pandemic but we can truly say that the expansion makes it so much better. Pandemic: On the Brink adds a lot of variety to the game and the addition of the bio-terrorist is a blast. Our full review of it will be coming up.

And we’re happy to see that Tobago takes the award for the most innovative. Being able to help determine where the treasure lies by the cards you play and the variety of the terrain layout makes it a hit with our family.

Other nominated games that our family really enjoys are Roll Through the Ages, Castle Panic and Word on the Street. They bring a lot of unique play experiences to the table. And while it’s been on our list for a while, I guess it’s time we go grab a copy Small World.

So cheers to all the games of 2009 that made it a great year for gaming. And we can already tell that 2010 is shaping up to be just as great.

Here’s also a reminder to take the time to play games with your family. A lot of people that listen to The Dice Tower podcast have a group of gaming buddies that they like to play games with. Just don’t forget that when you make the time to play games with your family, you’ll build bonds that last. And they can become some of your best buddies too.

Now I better get back to my buddies – we’ve got some games to play.