The game map changes every time for an endless variety of play. View larger.

Settlers of Catan engages both children and adults, garnering best-seller status in both Germany and the US. View larger.

What We Think Fun Factor: Durability: (what this means) The Good:Engaging strategy game that's different each time you play The Bad:Requires three or four players In a Nutshell:The Settlers of Catan is fun, easy to learn, and keeps advanced players on their toes At a Glance Ages:10 and up Requires:Three or four players

On the Road to Settlement
The game rules and almanac booklet sets out four pages of guidelines for getting started. Don't worry, the rules are straightforward and the four pages include plenty of illustrations. There's a starting map that shows a well-balanced set-up for beginners to follow and directions that allow more advanced players to lay out the map of the island at random. You'll have to pop the die-cut components of the game out of their cardboard holders before you play your first game.

The almanac portion of the booklet is laid out alphabetically, so while playing you can find answers to specific questions quickly. Useful entries remind you exactly what role pieces like the robber play, how actions like maritime trade work, and how to set up the board or finish the game.

Exploring and Developing Catan
The board consists of 19 terrain hexes surrounded by the ocean. Each type of terrain produces a different type of resource: brick, wool, ore, grain or lumber. There's also a desert hex that produces no resources. As the game progresses, players use resources to build roads along the edges of these hexes and settlements or cities on the intersections where three hexes meet. Each player begins the game with two settlements and two roads.

Each player's roll of the dice causes certain hexes to produce resources, which you collect if you have a settlement on one of them. On your turn, you'll use various combinations of the resources you've acquired to build new roads and settlements, upgrade settlements to cities, or purchase development cards. The ability to trade resources with other players adds a new level of strategy and ensures that the game includes lots of interaction between players. You can also trade without worrying about other players using an unfavorable maritime trade rate. Elements including a robber piece that lets you steal from other players and a variety of development cards add intrigue to the game.

The objective of The Settlers of Catan is to be the first one who collects 10 victory points. Each settlement is worth one victory point and each city is worth two victory points. You can also earn victory points by holding the "Longest Road" card, the "Largest Army" card, or special victory point development cards.

Best-Selling Game of the Year
It's easy to see why The Settlers of Catan has been recognized as a best-selling Game of the Year in both Germany and the U. S. We found this game to be fun and engaging for both children and adults, and the variable nature of the playing field really made us want to play again and again. When we started pausing to contemplate our opponents' strategy and factoring the probability of different dice rolls into our moves, the game sometimes took longer than expected, but we were so engrossed we didn't even notice until it was all over.

Due to the widespread popularity of the original game, several expansion sets (sold separately) are available that allow you to explore new aspects of the game or add more players. The only downside to this game is that you need to have either three or four players to play, so it's great that expansion sets are available that will allow you to add players.

Not Your Average Board Game
Blokus encourages creative thinking and has received a Mensa award for promoting healthy brain activity. The goal of this game is for players to fit all of their pieces onto the board. When placing a piece it may not lie adjacent to the player's other pieces, but must be placed touching at least one corner of their pieces already on the board. The player who gets rid of all of their tiles first is the winner and strategic thinking helps as you block moves from your opponent. Blokus sometimes comes to an end because there are no more possible moves.

Four players make this abstract game especially fast and exciting; however, it can be just as fun for two or three players. Blokus has come up with a number of different ways to play the game to make it more thrilling when playing with less than four players. Draft Blokus allows a player to use more than one color and Reverse Blokus reverses the entire game so that the person who places the least amount of tiles on the board is the winner. It can even be played in a solitaire version when one player attempts to place all of their pieces in a single sitting. A game of Blokus typically lasts a 30 minutes. As a practical feature, raised edges on the board help keep the tiles in place and allow convenient clean-up. This game includes 84 pieces in four vibrant colors, an instruction guide, and one gameboard with 400 squares.

Blokus is simple to understand, but the game's complexity is revealed shortly after everyone begins to play. It can be addictive, even for those not normally into abstract games. Blokus is a catalyst for spatial thinking, as players form images in their mind before placing the pieces on the board. Children and adults can play together for hours of competitive family fun. As Europe's 2003 Game of the Year, Blokus is adored by many and even played in professional tournaments.

The Hyper Dash helps kids develop basic math and color and number recognition skills. View larger.

The Hyper Dash uses RFID to wirelessly recognize targets. View larger.

What We Think Fun Factor: Durability: (what this means) The Good:Award-winning way to stay active; improves listening, memory and math skills The Bad:Plastic unit may not hold up to lots and lots of rough play In a Nutshell:Hyper Dash is a fun way for kids to exercise their bodies and their minds At a Glance Ages: 7 and up Requires:3 AAA batteries

Fast, Easy Set-Up
The only set-up required is to install three AA batteries. Opening the battery compartment requires a small Phillips head screw driver, which means an adult needs to change the batteries. This keeps batteries in the right place during active play, but it also means that changing batteries on the fly requires you to have a screwdriver with you.

The manual is clear and concise, with descriptions of how to play and a list of all the special commands the Hyper Voice issues, so any child can be up and running in just a few minutes. There's no button to turn the unit off, but it quickly shuts itself off when not in use to save battery life.

Getting Moving Quickly
The electronic tagger plays upbeat music and calls out voice commands to control the game, while players following the commands race against the clock to tag targets identified by color and number. Kids can play solo, up to four players can compete head-to-head, or up to eight players can work cooperatively in teams of two. There's even a level where kids need to solve addition and subtraction problems to figure out which target to strike next.

With no complex set-up and no complicated directions to follow, younger children get started playing Hyper Dash quickly. Since players control where the five targets are positioned, there are infinite ways to play Hyper Dash. Combined with the fact that Hyper Dash offers four games to choose from with increasingly difficult levels to master, and it's easy to see why even older, more experienced players (including parents!) stay excited about this game.

Four-Games-in-One
The original game, Hyper Dash, features the Hyper Voice calling out commands. Four different levels allow the players' skills to progress. Level one includes only colors in the calls. The calls on level two are a little faster and include both colors and numbers, while level three adds special commands like "Double Strike," "Triple Strike," and "Reverse. " Level four features the "CompuStrike" call, which require kids to solve basic math problems, such as "four plus one" or "three minus two. "

In Team Dash, a special command indicates when the Hyper Dash unit should be handed off, turning the race against the clock into a relay. The games Micro Dash and Team Micro Dash set out sequences that get progressively longer and trickier, providing a challenging test of memory.

The Hyper Dash unit keeps track of times and scores, and the Hyper Voice announces the winner at the end of the game, cutting down on arguments. With only one Hyper Dash tagger, kids will have to wait their turn to play in multiple player games. This can be both a lesson in patience and an opportunity to cheer others on.

RFID Technology for a Flexible, Durable Game
Hyper Dash uses radio frequency identification (RFID) to recognize the targets. The same technology is used to track packages and to identify books and DVDs in many libraries. This means that a wireless signal connects the Hyper Dash unit and the targets, so there's no need to strike targets with force.

While the Hyper Dash tagger unit seems incredibly durable, it is made of plastic. Just because RFID technology means kids can tag targets lightly, it doesn't mean they will. Our one concern about the game is the possibility that hard play will damage the tagger over time.

With RFID, there's no limit to how far apart you set the targets. You can set them up at opposite ends of a football field for a serious test of endurance, or close together requiring fancy footwork. You can even them up next to each other to see who has the quickest hands. This flexibility makes Hyper Dash appropriate for both indoor and outdoor spaces.

Award-Winning Educational Fun
Kids have so much fun playing Hyper Dash that they don't realize how much they're learning. Parents will love the way Hyper Dash combines active play with lessons that support color and number recognition, basic math skills. The game's format also inspires better listening and improves kids' coordination. It's no wonder that Hyper Dash has won an iParenting Award and a Seal of Excellence Award from Creative Child Magazine, along with several other honors recognizing it as an innovative, educational toy.

What's in the Box
Hyper Dash unit and five plastic targets.