Board To Death

I can't imagine a funnier scenario than coming across this in a thrift store. I didn't. That didn't happen. I just can't imagine a funnier scenario for finding a board game than that. Released in 1981 by Milton Bradley and designed by Michael Gray (once again no artist is credited that I can find but really does 'multicolored squares' count as an art design?), Bargain Hunter is perhaps the local income family version of Electronic Mall Madness. Now you live on the other side of the railroad tracks after some bad investments, and you can no longer afford the finer products in life, forcing you to do all your shopping at a thrift store. Gray is actually a fairly accomplished game designer who, ironically enough, designed Electronic Mall Madness. When I say accomplished, for the record, I just mean that he's successful. Not that the game's he's designed are decent. In fact, a majority of them appear to be novelty titles based on pre-existing IP. "T...

Gunfight at O.K. Corral is a board game in which a pair of dueling children pit their monstrous sized personal Cowboys against one another in a fight to the death. Okay, not really, but that would be so much better than what it actually is, wouldn't it? Kaiju Cowboys? Maybe it's just me who find that amusing. Either way, Gunfight is similar to the previous game featured here, "Crossfire", in that it almost boils down to essentially the same overall concept of just shooting things at whoever is on the other side of the board. Published by Ideal in 1973, I can find no information on either the designer or the artist, which kind of leaves us in a tough spot, because now I don't have anyones career to pick through for amusement, so let's talk about the game itself, shall we? Frankly, I think if you're having a gunfight, then not everything is okay at this corral. The description of this game is as follows: This is a children's dexterity game where players ...

Before its name was adapted for a terrible right wing show featuring smarmy holier than thou fools who actually probably knew less about politics than an actual human infant, Crossfire was a radical board game. Well, it was a game on a board, anyway. Crossfire is one of those that really straddles the line between "board game" and "toy", kind of like Hungry Hungry Hippos. Still, it's absolutely awesome, and if you're of my age (I'm 33 for those wondering) then you likely remember the completely over the top commercial that went with it. Boy do I miss the days when they tried to sell kids games and toys using hard rock anthems. Good times, good times. To be honest, however, for the sake of transparency, I'm going to admit that I had completely forgotten about Crossfire until doing some research for what games to feature on the blog this month and this one came up, immediately unlocking long lost memories of Saturday Morning Cartoons interrupted interm...

When I was a little girl, my stepbrother wanted to go slot car racing for his birthday one year. I wasn't a huge fan of it, but over the years I've managed to gain an appreciation for miniature models and hobbies like that, and perhaps that's where my enjoyment for things like this came from. Not that that was my only exposure to toy cars, mind you. I also had a small collection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox - which were the lesser cool console wars of the day, frankly - because, unlike other girls my age, I liked stuff like that and also my dad, on the rare occasions I saw him, gave me a lot of them. So when you match those points up with my adoration for board games, specifically the 3D modeled board games with set pieces, then what you have is something entirely unique, like Crash Canyon. Crash Canyon, published by our board game overlords Milton Bradley, was released in 1989, the very year I was born. Designed for 2 to 4 players, the description is as follows: "This o...

Hey kids! Are you ready to shill out for the government? Think you've got what it takes to kill innocent people and then claim it's for national security? Then do we have the game for you! That's right, this is Project CIA: The Secret Formula. I'm not gonna pretend that this games mere existence isn't surprising, because it really truly is. I mean, most of the time board games are fantasy based, make believe, something ridiculous and over the top that is so far removed from reality that you could never imagine it coming true, like, for instance, how you can supposedly own property in Monopoly. But no, here's a game centered around a very real thing in our world. The CIA. Let's just get one thing straight right from the get go...this box is hideous. The artwork is so ugly, and the almost baby puke green color is an awful choice. Usually a board games box is often better than the game itself, but for once, we have the opposite situation here. This might in fac...

"She walked into my office, you know the type...the quiet but questionable dame, the one you show off to the boys at the club but don't bring home to mother. She told me she was in need of two things; a good detective and a stiff drink. Lucky for her both things could be found in my office." I have to admit, there aren't enough mystery type board games. Oh sure, we have "Clue", and we have...well..."Clue", but that really does run the gamut it seems like. Perhaps I'm not taking into consideration the amount of new board games that come out on the regular (and I'm not because this blog is primarily about classic board games) so maybe that niche has been somewhat filled out more, but I really like the idea of a noire styled board game, and I feel like it's a genre that really hasn't been touched on quite enough in recent years, for any sort of content, really. And it's a shame, because there's a lot you could do with it, espec...

Back again to teach us the importance of stripping the world of its natural resources and creating an unsustainable business model are the minds behind Monopoly, with their new game, "Hotels". And by new, I mean it's from 1974, but I've always been of the opinion that if it's something you've never seen, then it's new to you, so. Hotels is a pretty basic and straightforward concept, overall. You construct an empire of hotels to bankrupt your opponents so you can continue your stranglehold on the market with no interference from anyone else. It's for 2-4 players, ages eight and up, and a game can run for 90 minutes. A brief description from Board Game Geeks reads as thus: Players try to buy and build the best hotels in this game, earning the most money or bankrupting their opponents. A successful hotel consists of three components: the land on which it's built, the hotel buildings, and the entrances by which guests arrive in the hotels. All three...