Thursday 26 December 2013

Today's Review: The New Operation


Operation is a classic game. As soon as you see the iconic patient laid out on the bed, random objects placed in gaping orificies, you just know that you want to avoid setting off the buzzer on his nose. Since it's such a classic, we decided to buy it for someone at Christmas. All was well, until we decided to play it this evening, and found out that this game is a shadow of its former self.

You see, the original Operation, which I have, contains cards and money. I'm not exactly sure of the rules, but the cards help change up the game and make it so anyone can win. The pieces are pretty difficult to extract too, making for an overall challenging board game.

This version of Operation takes a dump all over it. There are no cards, no money, just the board and the pieces. You take it in turns, starting with the youngest player, to remove a piece of your choice. The person at the end with the most pieces wins. That's all. We played with a 3 and 6 year old, and the game was over in less than 10 minutes. The pieces are ridiculously easy to take out, and there's nothing to stop the turns going in a complete circle until the game sputters to a halt in a tiny amount of time.

I get what they're doing with this version. The box says 4+, and it's certainly simple enough for my kids to understand. But this is so ridiculously dumbed down I'm sure even a monkey could do it. But hey, maybe that's the new target demographic.

My rating: 1/5

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