I'll only go over the games I demoed that are new to the community, though I'd be interested in other people's thoughts about Kingdom Builder. I liked the demo game, but it seemed expensive to buy at the con.
Spartacus:
Neat game that holds true to the spirit of the show. The point of the game is to raise your influence to a certain level and there are many ways to do so. There's the political intrigue part of each turn where you (and possibly other players) scheme to do nasty things to other players. There's the gladiatorial part of each turn where two players get to duke it out for fame and glory. There's a third undercurrent, which is money. Though it doesn't directly lead to influence, it's really important for asset acquisition and maintenance (slaves, gladiators, equipment) and for auctions (for assets and the right to host the games).
It's a pretty easy game to learn/teach, thematically fun (especially the part where the host chooses life or death for the loser in the games), and pretty interactive (the pleaded/begging/scheming). I love how they allow for different game setups to control the length of the game.
I had two plays so far: A one-turn introduction at GenCon, which was enough to buy it, and a full game later with two friends. Our game was very competitive, varied in terms of the strategies we employed, extremely close (all three had a chance to win within the last two turns), and we laughed the entire time.
Summary: I wouldn't have a problem calling it the game of the show for me.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game:
I need to start by saying I have no experience with field combat games like Warhammer or Battleship Galaxies. This is written from essentially a newbie's perspective.
As a big geek of Star Wars, I was immediately drawn to the booth and it already had a 5/10 rating from the start.
The figures seem pretty well-detailed for out-of-the-box components. The movement templates make moving across the board straightforward (no debating about lengths, angles, etc.). The selection of movements (hidden choice a la Robo Rally) and the movement types (relaxed, normal, and stressed) add a nice level of complexity to a basic part of the turn. Line of sight is handled by a simple straight piece of cardboard.
As we played the demo, it felt pretty good and actually felt like dogfighting. The powers seemed varied enough and there's pretty decent depth for the choices a player could make.
I'm 75% about this game. It was fun to play, but there were a few factors that held me back from getting it. First, the MSRP of $45 + $15 + $15 to have enough figures (min 2 per side) was enough for me to stop and think about it. Secondly, having seen the other types of field combat games out there, I know there are other games out there that are far more complex. Not that being more complex is necessarily a good thing, this is where my lack of experience makes it hard to give it a complete grade.
Summary: This is on my maybe-yeah list. I definitely have to get it from CSI if I do get this, but I'll need to sit on the idea for a little while.
Smash Up!
When I was told to look for this game before the convention started, I was hyped on this game by a fellow goer. The way he described it, I imagined Rampage the video game translated to a board game. My head was swirling with images of a cityscape board and monsters climbing all over the towers, knocking S down. Imagine my surprise when I sat down to what essentially was a card game. His description was accurate, but my imagination let me down.
Smash Up! is a card customization game where the customization basically happens at the beginning of the game when players draft their team combinations. As an owner of Puzzle Strike, that's already strike one because new players have a significant disadvantage against advanced players. As experience grows amongst players, it'll probably level out.
With your two race combinations, you will spend each turn playing an action and deploying a minion to a location. The goal is to overrun a location and the participating players will be rewarded with points based on their contributions. The locations are varied and you can tell that some are themed towards specific races.
Our demo game went to 7 points (a full game goes to 15+?) and … I won with 13 points in 5 turns. Pre-draft, I had guessed that the Robots and Zombies would make a strong team, but had no idea it'd be game-breaking (again, without prior experience, my opponents stood no chance). I think the score ended up 13/4/2/1.
Summary: It was fun to play, but I really hate it when I break a game. It has "Quarriors" written all over it for me, which is a heavy strike two because I just don't see the balance between the races in this game (don't get me started about Quarriors ...). Basically, I'd have no problems playing it if someone else had it but I'll never buy this game.
