You know, there's just not enough firefighter appreciation out there. Not to sounded like a typical, jaded milennial, but why do sleazy cops get all the attention - all the TV dramas, the film franchises, the childs propoganda disguised as cute dogs - when firefighters, people who are actually risking their lives and saving people instead of killing them because of their skin color, not being recognized at all? A damn shame. Thankfully, someone at Milton Bradley was apparently asking the same question all the way back in 1973!
"The Emergency!", also know by its French title "Le Jeu Emergency!" (because everything is funnier in French) is a board game for up to 4 people that pits players against each other in a race to be the fastest to complete emergency calls. Now, and I can't believe I have to say this but I guess I feel it needs to be stated, I get that competition is apparently what makes good business, but maybe, ya know, if an orphanage for blind children and also disabled puppies is burning down, don't challenge your mates from a fellow station to see who can get there first and save the most children and puppies. That just seems kind of shitty.
Our good buddies at the ever helpful Board Game Geek describe the gameplay as such:
"Cards are drawn from an emergency deck which directs players to certain areas of the board. By use of a numbered spinner, players attempt to make it to the emergency spot and return to their home location. Stop signs and single land roads may limit movement at times.
A hospital card may also be drawn from the card pile which forces a player to proceed to the hospital prior to completing a mission. If a player holds more than one hospital card, this may be passed to another player if landing on the same space.
The first player to complete 3 missions is the victor."
Once again, as has become sadly typical, there's no design to place the focus on, so let's just take a gander at the box and board and what have you and see what we think. The box, quite frankly, is beautiful. It's a lovely piece of art presenting a team of firefighters either competing or helping one another put out a fire. Why there's three triangles with seemingly unattached images in them, however, boggles my mind, but let's maybe not read too deeply into that. Either way the artwork is gorgeous, almost looking as if it were created specifically for an ad campaign to promote fires.
Your tokens and cards are, however, a little less visually interesting. In fact, I'd put them at below bog standard, even. Red on white, with tiny plastic multicolored firetrucks? Boring. And I realize the tokens themselves have to be differently colored in order to differentiate which person is which token, but who the hell's ever heard of a blue firetruck? That's just stupid. Get the hell outta here with that nonsense. Firetrucks are red, the color of fires, duh! Everyone knows that.
It's a shame, really. The tokens, whatever, this is what board games came with generally, little simplistic plastic representations of the thing, so I won't really dig on that too much, but you could've at least put some effort into the cards for god sakes. And, while we're at it, can we maybe discuss the emergencies on these cards? Because, wow, they really have some range.
Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't we supposed to be firefighters? I mean, I know the game description states "Be a part of Squad 51 of the L.A. County Fire Department's Paramedical Rescue Service" but the box has primarly firefighters on it and, correct me if I'm wrong, but...I'm pretty sure firefighters don't save people from jumping off buildings in suicide attempts. That's usually a job for the police proper, and even then, they usually kill the person long before they manage to accomplish their suicide. Really they're just helping. I mean, perhaps we're not given all the information for this and, contextually, we're left somewhat in the dark. Perhaps this building IS on fire, and that's why she's jumping from it. I don't know. I just find it weird.
But perhaps weirder is rescuing a small boy trapped in a drainpipe at a refuse area. Again...sounds like a job for the police. Also, if a child is dumb enough to get stuck in a drainpipe, maybe he deserves to be there. The hell are you doing playing in refuse? I know, I know, this was the 70s and there were 4 things kids were allowed to do, but still. And there's not even a way to try and make this one tangentially about fires, because a drainpipe can't catch fire. It just can't. It's metal. That's science. And as for stupid little Billy, well, that's what we call survival of the fittest.
Finally! A possible emergency that could feature a fi....wait it crashed in a lake? It's ALREADY IN WATER. What help would firefighters be? The job is already done for them! Good god, give me a plane crash into a building, or an empty field or, hell, an orphanage for blind children and disabled puppies, but a lake?! This is, in my opinion, the only one that actually constitute an emergency, as far as I'm concerned. The lady who wants to jump off her roof, hey, it's her life and her right to end it. Billy in the drainpipe? That's just poor breeding resulting in stupid kids doing stupid things. But this, a plane crash, that's an actual emergency! So you have the audacity to finally give us a real honest to god emergency, and then put said emergency in a lake. Why am I even playing this. I can't rescue anyone.
I like that they put little images of emergencies around the board, that's a neat idea. And the board is also interesting in that it's throughline, the track if you will, doesn't really have a beginning or end. It's just a small little thing you follow to get from emergency to emergency. But if we're being honest, the biggest emergency this board game has is its lack of creativity. Oh, don't get me wrong, the scenarios presented on the cards are creative, I mean who gets stuck in a drainpipe? Well, maybe back in the 70s this was normal, but. What I mean when I say "lack of creativity", I mean just visually. Outside the front box, everything ranges from meh to eh. Nothing is really super interestig, nothing is really very cool, and everything is just kind of subpar. You couldn't even reach par. That's how lazy you were. Par is the middle of the road, and you couldn't even manage that!
All in all, despite my constant irking, it's a perfectly fine board game, but it's nothing to really remember. It's just another on the long stack of "just alrighty" that we've seen time and time again. And maybe that's why, unlike so many others, "The Emergency", oh, I'm sorry, I mean "Le Jeu Emergency!" hasn't continued to be released to modern day, and that's okay. Not everything needs longevity. We need board games that don't last forever. And thankfully, according to Board Game Geek, this only lasts about ten minutes, which sounds about right. Also, if you can rescue a woman from the roof of a building, a child in a drainpipe and an entire crashed plane of passengers submerged in a lake in ten minutes, then you're not a firefighter, you're Superman.
And frankly they should be paying you a lot more.
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