Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A few thoughts of Batman

I recent bought a game called Batman Begins Shadow Assault. I bought it off ebay despite it getting very poor reviews.

Why would a sane game collector buy a game he knows is poor?

Well simply put, it's the bits! The game comes with 4 Batman figurines and 20 plastic ninjas. It was the thought of those pieces that drew me in. I was thinking that I could make or use those in a game of my own devising.

So the game arrives I crack it open and take a look. I was still disapointed even though I knew it was going to be a bad game. The problem for me is that of the four Batman's ( Batmen? ) one of then has such a terrible pose that the best thing to do with it is to feed it to the nearest hungry child. Hang on there's more. The twenty ninja figures are clear plastic. They are shown on the box as being made of grey plastic, and when I compare the figure to the box, I would have preferred the grey.

So with my disapointment hanging over me I looked at the rules to the game. Oh dear, just as the reviews said on BGG.

So is it all gloom? No, I do still have three Batman's ( that just doesn't sound right) and twenty ninjas is still twenty ninjas after all, but there is a bonus as well. The game comes with four plastic dice made for stickers. These dice have flat recessed sides where stickers can be stuck, so I'll be able to use them when I come to make a Print and Play game that needs bespoke dice. :)

1 comment:

Jack Nutting said...

I agree, this game, as sold, is a sad waste except for the nice little dudes. I bought this game cheap from a bargain bin for my youngest daughter's latest birthday; She's just six, really too young to be able to understand the rules (OTOH, the rules seem so bizarre and arbitrary that I hardly understand them myself), but she loves Batman so I figured, what the heck.

As it turns out, she really loves playing the game, but only with the home-grown rules that we made up ourselves, which are simpler and more fun, and I think give her a feeling of "pride of ownership" since she was deeply involved in inventing the rules. My tiny game hacker!