Mark's #8: Expedition

At first glance, it looks like a boring geography game. You've a got a map of the world, with all of these important cultural places marked on it. The cards are stuffed full of "color text", telling you about the history & background of the cultural places. (Of course, if your copy is in German - like mine - they might as well have written: "Aboriginal Drawings/Australia - yadda yadda yadda.)

But what hides under all the educational "cover" is a splendid game. Though best with 3 players, Expedition plays just fine with 2-6 and has ample room for clever plays & twists of fate. The players "move" three expeditions across the globe, helping & hurting each other in their quest to finish their assignments first. I'm very good at this one - which may explain why it ended up in my Top Ten. :-)

Thankfully, Ravensburger FINALLY published an English edition of this last year (entitled National Geographic Expedition). Unfortunately, it's only available in Europe. (There's also a slightly different version of the game called Wildlife Adventure - I've never had the opportunity to play, but it is LONG out of print.)