Mark's #45: Star Wars - The Queen's Gambit

Sometimes, when you buy a big box game, it's full of air... the company just wanted a big hunk of shelf profile and so made the box large enough to offer living space to a gang of Smurfs and their pet ferret. That is definitely NOT true with Avalon Hill's The Queen's Gambit, which also manages to buck another trend, the general suckage of movie tie-in games. The box is filled to the brim with a three-tier "palace" + two other battle boards + a chunk of plastic minis.

In fact, I like the game better than I like Epsiode 1. (Geek note: there are two really great parts to Episdoe 1: [a] the closing 30 minutes of the movie, which is the subject of my #45 game, and [b] the pod race, which really needs to be made into a game. Otherwise, George Lucas, what were you thinking?!)

This is a big, sprawling, table-eating dicefest - and yet you do have some control with your card orders. There's a constant balancing act going on between the various battles, and the game is filled with great "yahoo!" moments, when something good happens for your side.

I call it a "three hour tour", because it takes 30 minutes to set up, two hours to play, and 30 minutes to put back in the box. It's well worth the time.