Video Game Board Games [part 6]: ZAXXON (Milton Bradley, 1982)

 

Here is a game I would've committed crimes to play more often, when it first came out in 1982.  My local roller rink was the first to get it, and I contributed lots of allowance toward its support.  I had a Scholastic Book Order book about "How To Win At Video Games" that told me the exact right level to line up my spaceship to defeat Zaxxon, and be able to do this:

Not a great photo, but you get the point. This was a big, heart-pounding moment.

This isometrically-endowed game was ahead of its time in its design, and according to Wikipedia, was one of the top 5 highest-grossing games that year. It requires much more skill and dexterity, and has a bit of a learning curve...so how does that translate to a board game?

As we have seen in earlier installments, there are two choices with this kind of thing:  1) phone it in, and slap a decal of Pac-Man or whatever on it, or 2) really try and emulate the mechanics of the source material.  I have to say, the makers did strive to duplicate the gameplay in this case, but--as we have also seen before--that authenticity can come at a high price, that being a level of complication that can put some people off.

This isn't going to be one of those games you try and play with your grandmother when you are stuck at your house over a holiday.  She is going to bust out the Monopoly--or the Boggle--if you attempt it.

The game board is divided into three areas.  I would've probably done this part differently, because it's convoluted.  Make one long gameboard for the fortress, and another smaller one for the dogfight area.  I do understand that the second fortress is where Zaxxon is, so maybe making three gameboards wasn't cost-effective.....but until you know what they intend, this one is confusing.

Basically, the left and right sides are the "Outer Fortresses," but for both players.  The middle column is the "Inner Fortress," but the top horizontal area is the "Dogfight Area."  I guess this was the only way for both players to work their way toward the boss fight at the same time, but like I said.

A lot of attention is given to the accessories and behavior of the pieces.  The planes even raise and lower on their stands, to mimic the altitude adjustments you can perform in the game, and you must be at the correct altitude to shoot something, or go over a wall.  When you roll a die, the number you end up with actually counts for every action you take:  you can move spaces, adjust altitude, shoot and destroy a target, and then do any of this again with your leftover number.  

Both players roll their dice simultaneously on each turn.  Whoever has the lower number gets to go first, and the lower number (only) gets to spin the spinner to determine enemy fire toward your opponent, which is pretty clever.  After which, both players use their die rolls for their own movements, as stated above.

Zaxxon himself (I wish the missile would've been launchable, but I am probably asking too much). It would've been fun to blast your opponent off of the board with a spring-loaded missile!

If you both end up in the "Dogfight" area, you get to have one, which takes the place of the middle level between fortresses in the actual game, where you fight a wave of random enemies.  By the way, when you get shot down at any point, you go back to the beginning....which I guess was done out of fairness, but if you really want to go for realism, you should have lives, I'm just saying.

At this point, the winner enters the Zaxxon area for the big boss fight, which the opponent controls for the battle.

So, before we enjoy the intruction manual, does the game pull off the experience? 

1) Well, yes, it really does, but like all of these games, it's the experience of the video game in slow motion, because, well, it's a board game.  This will have an effect on the players, depending on their age and their tolerance for minutia.  

2) It requires more paying attention than lots of board games, and therefore is more cheat-able.  I can see lots of kid arguments forming, about "you didn't count it when you raised your ship just then" or "hey, you don't have enough left to shoot right then" and, maybe a black eye or two.

3) The game board, while probably completely practical, could be laid out better.

4) This is yet another game where losing parts will affect future replayability....I mean, that's always true, and why own anything if you aren't going to take care of it...but I still point that out every time.

Overall, I'm going to say this one is even a bit more successful than some of the others we have looked at.  I know that I, for one, would've loved the chance just to set up a model of the Zaxxon fortress using these pieces, and loved it just for that reason.

In closing, here is the instruction manual for your perusal:

Believe it or not, we still have quite a few examples of this strange species of board game to look at, and a couple I still want to track down, so I guess that means this series goes another four years or so, at the rate it's going.

Oh! I almost forgot to completely rag on the eventual Atari 2600 version that we got, after much begging of parents and Christmas list-making.....it looked like this.  And you thought the 2600 Pac-Man was a failure: