The city never sleeps. It's a cruel mistress that wakes me up in the middle of the night, and never with a warm kiss. It pulls me from my warm bed to tell me stories of mayhem, crime, and murder. Then it drags me around by my wrinkled necktie, making me look at the dirty underbelly of the place I call home.
Take the case of the Clue DVD Game. Sure, I know what you're thinking. You've heard this song before. The tune may change, but the words are always the same - doesn't matter if it was Scarlett or Mustard, Green or Plum, because in the end, Boddy's dead and it's my job to figure out whodunnit, and where, and how. It's an old song, and by now, it's a boring song. Trust a board game and a rotten whore of a home town to make a murder dull.
But this case is different. This time, the city wants to make me work harder than ever before. This time, my harsh lover tells me a tale, not of murder, but of burglary. She still wants me to find out who did it, and where, and what got pinched, but now I have to figure out when the dirty deed went down.
But this time, she gives me a little help. Instead of wandering around at the random whims of a single die roll, she lets me go right from room to room. No more standing outside in the hallway while some other gumshoe gets the dirt on Peacock in the ballroom with the candlestick. No more standing outside the kitchen, one damned roll away, listening to White put the screws to Mustard and his stinking revolver.
And I have other help, help that dirty slut of a city hadn't considered when she hauled me up in the middle of the night to wander around Tudor Manor and help some crusty old millionaire recover his purloined tchotckes. This time, I can ask the butler for help, and he can sing like a canary. This time, I can ask a copper for help now and then. And this time, a wrong guess isn't the end of the line.
Maybe the city doesn't hate me as much as I love her. Maybe she doesn't mind if, as the hunt for the sticky-fingered villain progresses, me and all the other private dicks sometimes share our information, throwing cards into the evidence room for everyone to see, whether we like it or not.
And then again, maybe she still hates me. Because in the end, if the head copper on the DVD asks for a card and I don't have one to give, it's curtains for me, sister, and don't bother bringing flowers. So it looks like that dirty bitch might still have the last laugh - if I can't solve this case before time runs out, the bad guy gets away and I flat-out lose. That's what I get for guessing wrong.
That's what I get for loving this city. And that's what I get for loving this game.
Summary
Pros:
Reinvents Clue - and makes it fun again
The DVD means you can make an accusation and not outright lose the game
Really neat components
Cons:
Cheesy 3D animation looks like bad Nickelodeon cartoons
Can slow down a little while you access the DVD
I hate Clue. And I love the Clue DVD Game. Go figure. If you want to see why this game is so much fun, go here and get one:
http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=browse&product_id=17524
4 comments:
[Peter Lorre]
Oh yes you, you seem to have really gotten into the spirit of this one. You know, Matt, I have many a friend in the internet, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.
[/Peter Lorre]
Just because you use some new-fangled gizmo doesn't mean I'm gonna give you a try, see? Clue was never my game, see? And just because you use some magic window to show me pictures don't mean I'm gonna like this game any more, see? Yeah, see?
The DVD isn't just a gimmick. It's one of the few games where the DVD is actually used really well. Most DVD games blow, because the DVD doesn't do much more than trick it up. This one, the DVD allows stuff you couldn't do in a game without a referee, and it makes the game decidedly better (meaning it actually makes it fun).
WOW - some of your best writing yet. I come to your site for laughs, and what do you do, show us a totally different style of writing. Good Work, and I have Clue Simpson's already, so maybe this would be a good edition for the nephews, thanks for sharing!
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