New Scotland Yard, New Mr X

A few days ago, my wife said that we should play board games more often with Wolfie. We have a few, but we seldom take them out. And there are a lot which I would love to own. Among them, there is of course Scotland Yard, my all-time childhood favourite. I recently discovered that they have updated the look of the game, or at least the box, with a more modern take. It's a very contemporary London and Mr X looks far darker and more menacing, even though he sitll wears the rather anachronistic hat. He looks like he belongs to a spy thriller, which I guess Scotland Yard could be, as much as a crime adventure. Anyway, while I love the old fashioned look, I must say, I think the game's antagonist gives a proper sinister vibe.What do you think?

Scotland Yard... Junior?

I found this at the local toy shop. You know of Scotland Yard, my favourite board game of all time. I didn't know there was a Junior version of it. I can only imagine how watered down it is from the original, but Mr X sure does not look as mysterious or scary on the box. I might buy it for Wolfie, as he is getting into board games, but I still want to get the real thing.

Scotland Yard in Hamleys

We did not buy much during our trip to Hamleys, but it had a lot of very temping toys and games. I was so happy to see Scotland Yard among the board games on sale. It may be my favourite board game, ex aequo with Clue/Cluedo. More details about my story with Scotland Yard here. I even invented a make-belief game based on it, I was that obsessed with it as a child!  The one I found in Hamleys is the original gameplay, set in London, on the chase of the elusive  Mr X. But I did not want to carry the whole thing through London and back home, and at £35, I thought it was a bit much. Nevertheless, I was tempted, for no better reason than to buy it in London would have made it extra special. All the same, it's on my list of birthday presents.

N.Y. Chase (Mr X in New York)

My readers know that one of my favourite board games is Scotland Yard, which features the Met against the mysterious and elusive criminal Mr X. The stock villain fascinated me as a child. Now I found out years later Scotland Yard had a number of sequels (can we say sequel when it comes to board games?), among them N.Y. Chase, where Mr X goes to New York. I must say I am quite curious about it, but I am skeptical. I've read in a number of reviews that the game is too easy for the detectives, who can use road blocks and other means. Mr X becomes a trivial fugitive, not the master criminal I always imagined him to be. Also, if you change settings, you also change dramatically the atmosphere of the game. The original channels on old English crime fiction, a certain nostalgia in a city that is still for many timeless and exotic. You kind of lose this if you switch London to New York. All the same, I am curious about it.

Mister X

 I blogged before about Scotland Yard,one ofmy favourite if not y favourite board game. When I was a child, it solidified my love of England and developedy love ofcrime fiction.In it, you play either a detective from, well Scotland Yard (aka the London Metropolitan Police, or the Met, but Scotland Yard sounds way cooler) orthe mysterious and elusive criminal Mister X. He is described as a criminal mastermind, but we don't know the nature of his crimes,or indeed his background. In the games' images, he's depicted as a man in a trenchcoat, wearing a hat and shades. Well, of course. I always quite liked this aspect of the character: we could imagine anything about him. Both the game and Mr. X made a strong impression on my imaginative mind as a child: my brothers and I invented a make belief game based on the board game (it often happened during my childhood) and Mr. X was one of the first villains we hunted down. I think I even invented some specific crimes for him to commit, some involved blackmail, some other industrial espionage, there might have been weapon trafficking and luxury goods too. Because he was at the start a blank slate, he developed into a memorable villain.

Scotland Yard

Once upon a time, before my brothers and I started playing role-playing games, we were very much into board games. To a point when they sometimes even influenced our make belief games. I used to ask for at least one board game as present at Christmas. One of my favourite has been Scotland Yard, which we received at Christmas 1987 if I am not mistaken. I was then, and I am still an anglophile and loved very much old fashioned crime fiction stories set in London and England and its police had a fascination over me. I didn't even know then that Scotland Yard was not even its real name, or even its real nickname anymore. In fact, everything about it being the élite of police in England was a tired old cliché. All the same, it was all I knew then of England's police life, or all I thought I knew, and it all seemed so exotic and exciting.

So I got the game as a Christmas present and to this day this is maybe my favourite board game (I rank it slightly higher than Clue/Cluedo). The premise is pretty simple: master criminal Mr. X is in London and he must be captured. One of the players is Mr. X, the others are detectives from the Yard and they are pursuing him in London through public transports: taxis, bus and underground. How much more British can you get? You spend tickets to travel (yes, even in taxi) and when you spent them all, you are stuck. That's a rip off, but not entirely unrealistic. In any case, it is a very exciting game and it is full of atmosphere and character. And what makes it unique is that it is a game of collaboration as the police officers work together to catch the villain. Strangely enough we did not play that often to Scotland Yard, maybe because I considered it a bit of the Holy Grail of board games. Maybe also because we played it as a make belief game more than anything else, although then Mr. X was not the only adversary we had. In any case, I would like to revisit Scotland Yard again.

Scotland Yard

Before I became a complete geek and started playing RPGs, when I was still a young and innocent child, I used to be into board games, something I only play during the holidays now. One of my favourite was Scotland Yard (you can find a few reviews here and a Youtube one here). I think it was triggered by my Anglophilia, which I had even then, even if I hadn't been in England yet. My first perception of London was through the map that served as the board for the game.

Other than my love and fascination for British culture (yes, I love British culture), the game appealed to me for many reasons. So, apart from the particular and pretty nice English feel to the game (the name Scotland Yard has almost mythical associations), it has that adventure element (pursuing a criminal in London is more dynamic and exciting than say investigating in Cluedo), it has a clever little game system that makes you use strategy and cooperation, it also has a bit of a dramatic background.

I discovered an advert for the game on Youtube. I loved watching it as a child, even though I could not understand a word of English. It was like watching the trailer of a movie in which I had a role. Now I wonder: why would Metropolitan Police detectives have American accents? I understand for Mister X, he could be of any nationality, but the police officers themselves?