As video gamers, we all love the thrills that our Xbox 360 consoles can provide. However, there’s something about the more traditional kind of game – the board or card game – that can provide things many of the current Xbox 360 games (or games for any other console for that matter) cannot; things such as actual human contact and socialization, the ability to sit back and think about your next move, actual tactile components, and, well, an atmosphere that just isn’t present with a game console setup. There’s something about playing a physical board or card game with friends at a gaming table that just oozes camaraderie and atmosphere. Games such as Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and Catan have all been adapted from their board game counterparts to great effect virtual games. So card and board games can most certainly benefit from a technological update to the current gaming generation…but some games are more deserving, or more adaptable, than others. Here are some board and card games that could do with an Xbox Live Arcade facelift.
10. These Go to 11: A nice little game I discovered at a Barnes & Noble one day, These Go to 11 is a game themed around rock and metal music, and the object is to amass an armory of 11 rocking guitars before anyone else can reach that number. The rules are simple (seriously, the rulebook came to just two pages), the music theme most certainly struck a chord with me (no pun intended), and it’s a fast-paced, fun game to kill time with and quote the Spinal Tap movie to. Considering the popularity of music-themed games for the Xbox 360 in general, this is one game that could certainly profit from a XBLA adaptation.
9. Axis & Allies: You can’t mention World War II in a traditional game store without bringing up Axis & Allies. Pretty much the definitive WWII experience when it comes to board games, Axis & Allies attempts to faithfully recreate WWII down to the last (reasonable) detail, and while it’s not entirely historically accurate, it’s not meant to be, as the focus is on keeping it fun for all. It’s gone through plenty of revisions, so an XBLA adaptation can keep track of them all and provide players a way to change the rules to whatever edition they desire to play. It most certainly can be done, despite its complexity – for instance, there’s currently an edition that can be played on Facebook. An XBLA edition can trump pretty much every other version if done right.
8. Scotland Yard: Scotland Yard is a board game in which a team of players, as "police", cooperate to track down a player controlling a "criminal" around a board representing the streets of London. It is named after Scotland Yard, the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police Service. Scotland Yard is an asymmetric board game, with the detective players cooperatively solving a variant of the pursuit-evasion problem. The game is published by Milton Bradley in the United States and Ravensburger in Germany and Canada. It received the Spiel des Jahres ("Game of the Year") award in 1983.
This feature top 10 list continues on the next page, please click below to see our next couple board/card game choices for XBLA remakes.
