I was very excited to hear that Reiner Knizia was going to to a two-player version of Carcassonne and we picked it up shortly after it came out. I thought it added some new wrinkles that were interesting, but on the whole it didn't do a lot for me.

I won't waste your time to explain the Carcassonne system in detail, except to say that you score points by laying down tiles, placing the classic "meeples" and scoring points for completeing features on the map. I'd rather talk about the things that make The Castle different from the other games in the line.

1) The tiles are more "modular," meaning that only roads have to match up. Fields, towers, and houses don't have to. This means that everything looks a little more disjointed but also means that it's easier to cut another players structure off, limiting their points. While this makes for different strategies, I didn't find it as nice to look at as regular Carc.

2) The scoring track. First of all, the track makes a barrier to the playing field, forcing the two players to build closely together. Second, there are little bonus tiles that can allow special point bonuses (an extra +1 per tile for a tower, or allowing to to score an uncompleted road at the end of the game, for example). These bonus tiles make for an interesting mini-game as to try to manage your score so you can be the first to pick up bonuses. The problem with this is that a player with an early lead gets a much better chance to grab those tiles, since it's "first come, first served."

The long and the short of it is that I find The Castle to be a closer, more competitive game, mostly because of that scoring track -- it limits your play area and there's a race for those bonus tiles. People that complain that vanilla Carcassonne is "hardly a game" may find the increased level of competition interesting to them.

I guess my final opinion is that while Knizia brought some interesting ideas to Carcassonne, I prefer the regular version. Maybe it's how the map looks at the end (I'll admit, I really enjoy the aesthetic part of Carcassonne), or maybe it has to do with how the changes make it a less laid-back game. If you think regular Carc is too mellow and not confrontational enough, you may want to give this one a try.

Final rating: for now, I'll give it a 5. I may pick it up now and again, but it isn't going to replace regular Carcassonne for me. (FYI< I still consider Ark of the Covenant to be the best iteration of the series so far.)