Product Review: World War Z, The Boardgame

I'm not a fan of horror, but oddly enough I like Zombie Apocalypse-style games.  I currently own most sets of Zombies!!!, the Last Night on Earth, along with a few expansions; and All Things Zombie.

So when my wife and I were out shopping last weekend I snatched up a copy of World War Z The Game by University Games.

The map is a Risk-like version of the world used to regulate the player's movement and the spread of the Zombie Plague.  The cards and cardboard playing pieces are decently made for the type of game this represents.  The rule booklet is only a half-a-dozen pages, so the game can't be too complicated to learn.

What irked me though was the Parcheesi-style tokens the players are suppose to use.

Seriously?

University Games couldn't think of something cooler to represent the players?

This isn't the only problem with the game, but I don't feel like wasting blog space about it.  Here's Mitch Lav with a scathing review about this game in particular, and movie tie-in games in general.

Overall, World War Z couldn't even get past the half-way point (5 out of 10 stars) in terms of ratings.

The raters on  Amazon were somewhat more generous giving the game an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

Despite the low opinion gamers have of this movie tie-in game, I'm rather happy with my purchase.

Why?

Well, for two reasons.

First, I often buy boardgames with an eye on using them for something other than the game itself.  In this, case World War Z would make a good campaign map, or situation map, for any of the Zombie Apocalypse games I mentioned earlier.

Second, and most important:  I found the game on the Clearance Shelf at Half Price Books--for $3.  Make that $3.29 with sales tax.

Hey, $3.29 for a poorly designed game?  I've spent far more than this on dumber things.

World War Z is currently going for anywhere between $5 to $16.99 on the Boardgame Geek Marketplace; or $7.77 to $32.54 on E-bay.

There are 0 bids so far, I might add.

But no matter how cheap you buy it on-line, you'd still have to pay for shipping & handling (S&H).

Best to troll through discount stores, or keep an eye out for gamers having garage sales.