More Wire Board Game Tie-Ins

Right, I'm already sick of this run of posts, so I shall bring it to an apocalyptic close with a run-down of some of history's best-loved board games and how we can make them relevant to the drug war in Bodymore, Murdaland.

The Wire Snakes and Ladders

Underscore the desperate pathos of street life in Maryland's largest city by making the board twice as big, removing all the ladders, and re-painting the snakes as dragons that kill you if slid down sufficiently many times.

The Wire Settlers of Cataan

Clay Davis never lets you build any settlements, no matter how many sheep you slip into his back-pocket. Then Omar shoots you. A game of low cunning and crushing inevitability.

The Wire Escape From Atlantis

Dockworkers have more than union-busters and suffocated hookers to deal with as a Katrina-style storm threatens to sweep the waterfront away entirely. Take on the role of Frank Sobotka as you attempt to evacuate your stevedores whilst under fire from local drug-lords, federal investigators, and unconvincing sea monsters.

The Wire Space Crusade

Just set The Wire in space, basically. How could that not be awesome? Omar could have a plasma-gun, for God's sake; presumably from one of those A planets.

Next week: Battlestar Galactica Ludo.

Inappropriate Merchandise No. 2

The more I think about it, the more I think pissing away an awesome concept like a Wire based board game on something as irredeemably awful as Monopoly is totally morally unacceptable. I don't want to have to explain to the man upstairs why I took one of the best television programmes of the last ten years and slapped in on the front of a box whose contents couldn't be more toxic if they were coated in anthrax.

Thus begins OFR's search for the perfect board game to crudely tart up to resemble the show in question. This week:

The Wire Cluedo

I can't believe I didn't think of this before! It's a perfect fit! Well, you'd have to move around the city of Baltimore rather than a musty stately home; and the murder weapons would all be guns of varying declensions (plus maybe poisoned heroin if the murder site turns out to be Baltimore State Penitentiary); and every time you entered a room with Pryzbylewski there'd be a small chance he would shoot you by accident; and depending on your character choice you may also have to play the game drunk, on drugs, or whilst avoiding your pregnant lesbian lover; and the fact that the murder victim is called Dr Black means there's going to have to be an investigation into whether the crime was racially motivated; and each game lasts a random number of turns before the politicians demand you shut the case down and play a new game instead. But other than that, you don't really have to change all that much at all.

Make sure to bring your soft eyes, grasshopper.

Inappropriate Merchandise No. 1

Having spent so much time yesterday deconstructing the myriad ways in which Monopoly is completely without merit, and why its legion of fans are entirely devoid of critical faculties, I began to consider how one might go about fractionally decreasing the games level of total worthlessness. Several attempts have been made over the years to repackage the game in an attempt to fool people into believing it has ceased to be a foul-smelling bubo of a pastime. Some are merely cosmetic, with alternate locations (my parents decision to buy me the Middlesbrough version of the game is probably the greatest unexplained event since the Tunguska Blast, if I ever get the urge to buy up Teesside University it will only be so I can burn it to the ground), others make fractional changes to the rules (special congratulations are in order when you can make building Star Destroyers boring as all hell). All were uniformly guff-filled, pestilent abominations masquerading as entertainment.

As far as I can see, there’s only one way to transform this catastrophic non-event of a game into something halfway decent, and that’s to set it in Baltimore.

Think about the possibilities! Instead of properties, you have corners. You still get houses, of course, but run-down ones which may or may not have bodies stashed in there by that bounder Marlowe. Instead of those boring Community Chest (“Also known as your mother!”) spaces, you could be required to draw special Clay Davis “Shhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” cards which crush your spirit with unreasonable demands from City Hall (all the Chance cards involve your mates getting shot, or stabbed, or addicted to heroin, obviously). When the cops send you randomly to jail, it will no longer seem like an arbitrary game mechanic and more like a biting satire of a corrupt system (obviously you have a dangerously high chance of being strangled in the big house before you have time to role a double). We can replace some of the less relevant playing pieces with a broken soldier and hooker-packed cargo container. And lastly, each time you pass Go, you lose $200 as Omar pops up to brutally shaft you (if you’ll pardon the expression). The damn thing still won’t end, obviously, but this is no longer bad game design, this is a poignant commentary on the hopelessness of life in Baltimore. After all, the game never ends, aight?

Authors note: we recommend you play the game heavily drunk, and settle all disputes with extreme physical violence. Buy now and receive a complementary McNulty curly-pube wig.

(Oh, and anyone claiming Baltimore Monopoly and Middlesbrough Monopoly are the same thing can piss off right now. Baltimore is in the grip of a heroin epidemic, whereas Middlesbrough is all about the child prostitution).

(Picture courtesy of Senior Spielbergo).