- Original Release: 2022
- Developer: Javier Angeriz-Caburrasi
- Publisher: Modiphius
- Platform: Board Game
In this worker placement board game, you get to be one of Bond’s villains, trying to be the one to take over the world. It was made by Modiphius, who published a brilliant Thunderbirds game, so it has a lot of promise.
By far the biggest issue with SPECTRE occurs before you start playing: the rule book. It’s really badly written, with the elements of the game explained in a non-linear manner, some rules only being told in examples and some that are not clear. There’s a fairly hefty errata to further clarify some stuff, fix mistakes and sort out mistranslations. Because of the complexity of the game, you can play the game many times and still not be sure you’re doing things right.
Each round, a mission appears that you and the other villains can choose to contribute towards it. The villain that does the most gets a reward, but if the requirements aren’t met, all players get punished. To do this, you use your villain, henchman and goons to gather resources and bonuses from either the map or your own personal board, which has abilities and locations specific to your villain.
The two dice are used to simulate what James Bond is doing – he can disrupt everyone’s work in one location or it’s possible for someone to get him to target one particular villain to cause them a huge hassle.
The main thing SPECTRE has going for it is theme, with the game mechanics being based on the concept of being a Bond villain rather than designing a game and throwing the theme on it. Unfortunately, the game it a but too convoluted, especially with the poor rules.
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