Monday, May 05, 2008

Scooby Doo - Cyber Chase, a Review


Brought and played this game today. I got the game second hand from a car-boot sale. I'm so glad I spent only 1 pound on this, rather than the MRRP.

You get a colourful box featuring the Scooby Doo characters, but its made of thin card and wont take much general usage.

The rules cover two sides of an A4 sheet, in big text ( in blue ). The rules are explained perfectly well, and we had no questions.

The board is a good heavy card, but the playing surface is disapointing in every way. It is colourful. There is a start space in one corner. Each of the other corners contains a challenge space. Running around the board are four spaces in between each corner, and players will move along these.

Each space along the edges contains text written in colourful jazzy text. This text says things like "Go back three spaces" or "Miss a turn", nothing more original than that.

The center of the board is just a splodge of colour.

Cards : There are a small number of cards. The cards show, Apple, Steak and Bone, one of each for each player. There is also a special card showing a magnet... the rules say it's a magnet, but it doesn't look like one. Finally for the cards we have two Samurai cards, one showing a broken sword one showing a normal sword.

We also get a spinner, that shows numbers 1 to 4 and a magnet space where you would expect to see 5. A coloured bar runs around the numbers in two tone.

The last components are some very nice plastic minis of the Scooby Gang. They are unpainted in vivid colours.

Game play is sadly boring and dull, even the kids thought so. Flick the spinner, move the number of spaces shown do what it says on the space you land on.

However if you reach a Challenge space in the corner, it stops movement until you pass the challenge and collect one of the snack cards ( bone,apple,steak) as a prize.

Challenges are dull. Have a spin off against the next player. Pick a colour on the spinner and spin to match the colour. Pick one of the two Samurai cards if its the unbroken sword you win.

The last space on the board is called the Stop space. Once you reach there, if you have the magnet card you have won.

As for the magnet card, if when you use the spinner, is comes up on the magnet segment you get the magnet card. There is also one space on the board that if you land on it, you get the magnet card. So this card moves around a bit.

If you get to the "Stop" space without the magnet, you spin each turn until you do get the magnet.

The theme is about as thin as you can get. Its a movie ( straight to DVD ) tie in, and suffers from the very worst elements of poor film tie ins. Nothing about the imagery or tasks make any sense or stand on their own. You will ask yourself, why is there a Samurai, why is there a dinosaur on the board, what is this virus thingy down here all about?

Dire. Dull. Dispiriting. Dismal.

The only good thing about this game are the Scooby gang in plastic. I'll be dumping the game and keeping the Scooby Gang who I'll be using in my Scooby Doo Cluedo variant ( which is posted in the files section on the "Clue" page ).

Dont buy it, unless you want the minis and then only second hand, and then only if its very very cheap.

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