Miscellany: Cranium WOW first impressions

When it comes to board games, my friends and I tend to play European-style strategy titles like "Settlers of Catan" or "Tigris and Euphrates." My sister's friends, though, are more into conventional party board games. We had a group of her buddies over at our place one night, and we started a little 2 vs. 2 vs. 2 vs. 2 game of Cranium WOW.

I never played the original Cranium, but this new edition seems to preserve everything that made the first iteration so popular. Cranium is sort of like Trivial Pursuit, except it mixes in elements from other games like Pictionary and charades. This kind of magpie mentality means that people who are wonderful artists or actors have a chance against people with encyclopedic knowledge.

It was pretty fun, but there are some stumbling blocks. In game balance terms, somebody who isn't familiar with American pop culture is going to be at a serious disadvantage. Additionally, the sheer randomness of the clues and questions means that you might find one team getting easy chestnuts while the others get thrown for a loop.