Having had a chance to try this game out an the UK expo in Birmingham, I was pleasantly surprised to find there is quite a lot going on in this little game.

You take control of 3 explorers who attempt to cross the flowing currents of the Bering straits. You do this through moving an ice flows and an explorer each round in either order. The ice flows can be rotated, moved along a fixed path until they drop off the board, and new ones can be bought onto the board (often with fresh supplies).

The explorers hold two types of material, rope and fish, and it is the myriad of uses for these items that drive the richness of the game. Explorers can use rope to cross the jagged edges (or ice packs) of ice flows and fish to get the energy to swim across one square to another ice flow. Rope can also be discarded to pick up two fish, as your explorer skips his move to go fishing !

Finally, the game comes with five "meeple like" polar bears that randomly appear on some newly created flows. These can be avoided or moved by any explorers who encounter them by spending a fish. When moved, the bears head in a straight line until they reach a new flow... and possibly a new explorer, who must immediately use rope or fish to escape to a nearby flow or move the bear again (but not bear tennis ! It must always move it to somewhere it hasn't just been). No fish or rope to flee ? Then the bear tears you limb fr... just kidding, you are airlifted back to the start of the map (almost as bad).

The game plays fairly fast, and it is the first to move all three explorers across who wins the game. Our demo game took around 90 minutes with interruptions, but I imagine this game should settle down to under an hour after a couple of plays. The rules are fairly well written, and there are plenty of FAQ boxes and play examples to iron out any initial niggles.

Quick to pick up, beautiful simple pieces and tactile ice flow counters to slide around, and plenty of depth of tactics bolstered by a low luck factor makes this a must buy for me at this year's expo. A highly recommended game for both "proper gamer" and somewhat more occasional gamers alike, and the polar bears are simply awesome.

I am seriously leaning toward buying this one. My only hold back is that, as usual, this Eurogame prefers to use the less realistic-looking wooden cutouts of people/animals. I prefer the more realistic plastic figures any day of the week.

That said, I am still considering the game...

I really want to give this a try after reading "The Terror" by Dan Simmons. And it sounds fun to boot.

Fully agree with your review. We enjoyed our demo game, although we found we had a lot of rules questions about specific situations. The gameplay is very quick to pick up and we felt it makes both a good family game and a gamer's filler. And the polar bears are lovely.

It's certainly a winner. The rules are easier to read than has been commented elsewhere and (imo) have been written after some pretty intense rules-lawyery comments. After reading them the gameplay sorted out any questions over the meaning _really_ quickly.

A beautiful game - pieces, board, movement and strategy, playable at multiple levels (more being discovered all the time).

And some of us prefer wood over plastic. To each his own, I guess.

And here it is, "wood over plastic". Bears, ropes and explorers are wood, floes plastic...

English word-play from the Finnish gentleman. Now THAT is impressive.

D.