When Hollywood movies are big and I mean mega big, they have influence over the entire globe. Something like Avengers: Endgame has been watched by audiences again and again and again. The film itself grossed around $2.8 billion, it therefore seems sensible for the studio executives to capitalize on this popularity as much as possible. Is the fact that the film is too big to fail – blockbuster syndrome – an indicator that board games based on movies will always be good? Today, in honour of director Sergio Leone, we have a list of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Table of Contents
- Star Wars: Imperial Assault (The Good)
- Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game (The Bad)
- Avatar: The Board Game (The Ugly)
- The Twilight Saga: New Moon – The Movie Board Game (Honourable Mention)
- Board Games Based on Movies Are They Box Office Titans or Flops?
Star Wars: Imperial Assault (The Good)
Star Wars is, of course, a franchise beloved by all. It would therefore stand to reason that many would enjoy the board games. The fact that Star Wars also has audiences from all age groups also helps its other merchandising be successful. There have been hundreds of Board Games based on the Star Wars movies, many bad, but there are a few gems in the rough as well.
Star Wars: Imperial Assault is one of these gems. The best thing about the game is that it actually feels like the movie. In the campaign mode, one player plays as the empire, with its unlimited resources and troops. The other players – up to four – play as the rebels; a hardened team of elite soldiers. The set up alone encapsulates the David and Goliath feeling of the original trilogy. Both Rebels and Empire fight over competing objectives to see who will come out on top.
The game offers a second mode: skirmish. In this mode, gameplay is focused around a deck of command cards. You will gather iconic characters from Rebels, Empire and third party mercenaries to get the upper hand on your opponents. The command cards will give you bonuses in battle to help you achieve skirmish objectives.
Star Wars has always seem to have knack with getting good games, be it video games or board games. It is just that they normally go through many some poorer iterations along the way. The success comes down to their passionate fan base who, like the empire, seem to have very deep pockets.
Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game (The Bad)
Die Hard is everyone’s favourite Christmas film (!). What is most surprising is that the iconic 1988 film did not see a board game until as recently as 2019. The Die Hard board game flips the formula discussed in Star Wars: Imperial Assault on its head. Instead of many good versus one bad, Die Hard plays many bad against one good – like the film. Players are split with one playing as John McClane, one other as Hans Gruber and everyone else as Gruber’s unnamed thieves.
Again, similar to the film, the game is split into three acts. The thieves have two win conditions, first, killing John McClane at any point in the game, second, breaking the sixth lock and triggering the roof explosion. In contrast, the John McClane character wins if he kills Hans Gruber in the third act.
The gameplay takes place through a card system. John McClane may do the following actions:
- Move
- Sneak
- Punch
- Shoot
- Support
- Shove
- Recover
Alternatively, thieves may:
- Lock
- Move
- Punch
- Shoot
- Reinforce
The game is definitely playable, but it falls down in one key area: replay ability. There is only a real difference in gameplay is in objectives between John McClane and the thieves. If you end up playing on the thief side several games in a row it can really get repetitive. In the same vein, if you play as John McClane multiple times you will have a similar gameplay experience too.
Avatar: The Board Game (The Ugly)
Avatar is actually the highest grossing film of all time, it does cheat a little in this accolade because of all the re-releases in theatres the film went through. However, no one can deny that the film was not a massive success with a total of five films planned for the series. So with all this success, how could they make a board game so bad?
The simplest answer is laziness. There does not seem to be much care put into the design of the models, they are flimsy cardboard cut outs of characters from the film. Players take the role of Na’vi warriors from the film and attempt to beat back the RDA (the humans for those that don’t remember – don’t worry I forgot too) before the Tree of Souls is destroyed. The objective is relatively similar to the film, so in this sense its true to its source material.
In order to beat the RDA players must collect eight wood sprite tokens through quests or battles – relatively straightforward. Avatar as a film is a curious case. For the amount of exposure it had, there are not many super fans, maybe because it took so long to release a sequel. The board game lacks care and attention which will be an unfortunately common theme for many movie tie in games.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon – The Movie Board Game (Honourable Mention)
The Twilight Movie Board Game appears on our list because it falls prey to the classic blockbuster syndrome crime. It thinks that fans care enough to pay over $50 for a movie trivia game. And to be fair, they are right – this does not make movie trivia games good though. The main issue is that you can only play them if you are a fan of the series, you cannot teach a movie’s worth of twilight trivia to a person in 30 minutes.
As interest in that specific movie or series wanes, the board game becomes exceeding less playable. In addition, the trivia is only as good as it is the moment it is published. If something gets retconned in future films or more plot themes develop, old trivia games can lose their relevance.
Board Games Based on Movies Are They Box Office Titans or Flops?
Blockbuster Syndrome is a real thing. The top executives think that board games based on movies will work simply because the movies were so successful at the box office. There is a belief that people will buy the board game because they liked the film; this is similar also in a lot of film tie in video games. It can work. Star Wars, for example, has done fantastically in both the board game world and video game world. However, Start Wars is the exception to the rule, it is a monster franchise and in most cases, board games based on movies just do not work that well. There is not enough thought that goes into it. Maybe it is the tight deadlines aligned with film release or it could be that the budgets are too small. Ultimately, they, more often than not, are ugly.
