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My Attempt to Play All James Bond Games
Cube1701
Wales
I've given myself the task of playing through both board games and video games of particular franchises. My current project is James Bond - I loved GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough but never fully played the others too much, so wanted to rectify that. I will be taking a look at all the board games and video games, including more obscure stuff like flash games and java mobile games.
Hopefully you'll find me going through the history of Bond games to be interesting. I'll be going in date order, so the first few updates will be lots of early board games. It should be noted that I'm much further ahead in playing than I am with the write-ups.
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James Bond Secret Agent 007 Game
Old board games are either hard to come by, or expensive. Many are missing pieces or have other damaged. Trying to play these out-of-print games with the original physical copies is pretty much an impossible task. Thankfully, a game called Tabletop Simulator has tools that can help recreate board games, so by finding as much imagery of the components, along with pictures or scans of the rules, I can re-create these old games to play – as well as letting others play it.
This Milton Bradley game seems to be the first James Bond board game, coming out in 1964. My experience with licensed games from this era is that most are roll and move games, but this one has no dice at all. It is still, however, heavily dependant on luck, although there is some strategy involved.
Each player has three cards, depicting one of the 11 locations in the game (or a “Spy Anywhere” game). Your goal is to move to the centre of that location (to the yellow spot) and play the card to score points. You can move between 1-3 spaces.
However, for every space you move, the clock hand seen on the board moves that number of hours. If you score after your move, you score an amount equal to what the clock hand is pointing to. This means it’s not as simple as going to the locations on your cards, you want to time it just right to get the most points.
In the middle of the game, you can bonus your points by having multiple agents in the same area, if you time this right, you can store a ton of points in one go.
It’s nice to see a licensed board game try its own thing, it’s a decent idea for a board game and is quite fun.
The James Bond 007 Secret Service Game
This board game went though a few different designs, for my recreation I went with the Spear’s version – the game itself is exactly the same, it’s mainly the board graphics that are different between each version.
In Secret Service Game, you are all competing to capture the briefcase at the centre of the board. Each layer of the board has different movement rules. In the outer layer, you play airport card to move between airports. In the “car” layer, you can move one space at a time, or two if you get in a car. The “shore” layer is similar, but has boats that help you get to the island – you can also play a helicopter card to move between these points.
To get across the water, you can use a boat or play a swimming card. You’ll also need to have the relevant “gate” card to access the island. Once you’re there, you’ll need to play a card that allows you to pick up the briefcase, then make your way back to your starting spot with the same rules.
However, other players can capture the briefcase from you if they land on your spot and play the correct card. Whoever gets back to their base with the briefcase is the “real” James Bond.
It’s simple and a bit silly, but fun and beats all the “roll & move” games.
James Bond 007 Tic-Tac-Toe
There’s not a lot to say about this game – it’s Tic-Tac-Toe (or Noughts & Crosses), but one person plays as 0 and the other plays as 7. The main significant thing is the rather nice metal casing the game is made in, with rotating parts to swap between blank, 0 and 7.
James Bond 007: Thunderball Game
A roll and move James Bond board game was inevitable, but this one has some nice ideas – although clearly inspired by Cluedo.
In this game, you are travelling to 6 different areas to try and identify nuclear bombs – one of them is the real one and the others are fake. Movement is done by dice, you roll two and pick which one you want for your movement and which one to move the spectre agent (who will injure anyone he lands on), although the latter only moves in one direction.
Once you reach an island (which requires an exact roll), you secretly look at the bomb and the triangle token, this will give you a colour and a letter. You then need to return to the centre island an pick a new number island to head towards. Once you’ve looked at all six bombs, you use the code on your sheet to identify which colour is the real bomb, and then head to it to win (if you figure it out early, you still need to have looked at all bombs and filled in the sheet to win).
Instead of heading to an area, you can also choose to go “on the prowl”. You can’t visit any islands, but can move around the board looking for other agents. If you land on one, you will get to look at one of their answers.
It’s quite simple, but has some nice ideas.
James Bond 007 Card Game
James Bond’s skill at casino and bluffing games is well known from the books and films, so a bluffing game makes a lot of sense for a James Bond game.
In this bluffing game, each player is dealt three cards – these are numbered 1-7 with a “007” wild card. Two cards are face up with the middle one face down. The object of the game is to get “winning combinations” – which are three of the same number or a straight.
When you have – or want to claim you have – a winning combination, you let it be known. People can bet against you if they don’t think you do. If they call your bluff, you have to give them chips, but if they call you out and you have a winning combination, you get chips off them.
It’s simple, but a nice little filler game.
007
This James Bond board game is an abstract strategy board game where you are trying to capture your opponent’s tiles. It’s best placed as a 2v2 game, although the rules do cover 1v1 and 1v2 versions. Red team plays against black team.
The game starts by taking turns to place tiles in a 4×4 grid. These tiles are numbered 1-5 (worth that many points) or have a 007 logo (worth 10 points). More of one colour may appear on the board than another, but the game assuses us that this is “fair”.
Once these have all been placed, the main part of the game appears. Each player picks (face down) one of their B-O-N-D tiles that matches the row they want to use. Once all players have picked, they’re placed on the relevant position. Any crossroads signifies tiles that can be “captured”. Any tiles goes to the side of the opposite colour. Capturing seven tiles ends the game, with the team that has most points being the winner.
This is an interesting little game, but doesn’t really have much to do with James Bond other than the logo on a few tiles and “BOND” being four letters.
007 Underwater Battle from Thunderball
This board game is exactly what the title describes: it lets you play out the Underwater Battle from Thunderball. The game came with pre-painted miniatures, so my Tabletop Simulator version uses some simple royalty free models to represent them,: they’re not accurate, but they get the job done.
Each side has a boss (Bond or Largo) and a squad of frogmen. Bond and Largo can move six spaces, while the rest can only move four. There’s also a SPECRE submarine, which Largo has to escort to Miami or Bond has to capture and take to the US Warships. After you move, you then roll the dice and you can use this to move sharks.
Fighting is quite simple: each larger red square is a “fighting zone”, if opponents are in one you tally up the “fighting score” for each side: 1 for each basic Frogman, 2 for Bond/Largo. The SPECTRE sub reduces the rider’s score by one. If it’s your turn, you can also use sharks to add to your score. The losing side is killed. It’s a very simple system that removes luck from the equation.
It’s a simple game that is almost pure strategy – with the slight exception of dice to help with the unpredictable nature of sharks. The physical figures also look good, so it’s a nice spectacle as well.
The James Bond Box
In this game, everyone takes turns trying to open a briefcase by moving the letters of “James Bond” over numbers and uncovering all the items. On your turn, you roll the two dice and move numbers that perfectly add up to the total shown on the dice. You keep doing this until you move all the numbers or you can’t use the total of the dice, where you record your score based on the numbers you still have showing. The person with the lowest score (or any that open the box) win the game.
This game is more commonly known as “Shut the Box” and has many different versions. The box art for this one is quite nice, though.
Hopefully you'll find me going through the history of Bond games to be interesting. I'll be going in date order, so the first few updates will be lots of early board games. It should be noted that I'm much further ahead in playing than I am with the write-ups.
---
James Bond Secret Agent 007 Game
- Original Release: 1964
- Developer: Milton Bradley
- Publisher: Milton Bradley
- Platform: Board Game
Old board games are either hard to come by, or expensive. Many are missing pieces or have other damaged. Trying to play these out-of-print games with the original physical copies is pretty much an impossible task. Thankfully, a game called Tabletop Simulator has tools that can help recreate board games, so by finding as much imagery of the components, along with pictures or scans of the rules, I can re-create these old games to play – as well as letting others play it.
This Milton Bradley game seems to be the first James Bond board game, coming out in 1964. My experience with licensed games from this era is that most are roll and move games, but this one has no dice at all. It is still, however, heavily dependant on luck, although there is some strategy involved.
Each player has three cards, depicting one of the 11 locations in the game (or a “Spy Anywhere” game). Your goal is to move to the centre of that location (to the yellow spot) and play the card to score points. You can move between 1-3 spaces.
However, for every space you move, the clock hand seen on the board moves that number of hours. If you score after your move, you score an amount equal to what the clock hand is pointing to. This means it’s not as simple as going to the locations on your cards, you want to time it just right to get the most points.
In the middle of the game, you can bonus your points by having multiple agents in the same area, if you time this right, you can store a ton of points in one go.
It’s nice to see a licensed board game try its own thing, it’s a decent idea for a board game and is quite fun.
The James Bond 007 Secret Service Game
- Original Release: 1965
- Developer: Jumbo
- Publisher: F.X. Schmid, Jouets Éducatifs Universels, Jumbo, Spear’s Games
- Platform: Board Game
This board game went though a few different designs, for my recreation I went with the Spear’s version – the game itself is exactly the same, it’s mainly the board graphics that are different between each version.
In Secret Service Game, you are all competing to capture the briefcase at the centre of the board. Each layer of the board has different movement rules. In the outer layer, you play airport card to move between airports. In the “car” layer, you can move one space at a time, or two if you get in a car. The “shore” layer is similar, but has boats that help you get to the island – you can also play a helicopter card to move between these points.
To get across the water, you can use a boat or play a swimming card. You’ll also need to have the relevant “gate” card to access the island. Once you’re there, you’ll need to play a card that allows you to pick up the briefcase, then make your way back to your starting spot with the same rules.
However, other players can capture the briefcase from you if they land on your spot and play the correct card. Whoever gets back to their base with the briefcase is the “real” James Bond.
It’s simple and a bit silly, but fun and beats all the “roll & move” games.
James Bond 007 Tic-Tac-Toe
- Original Release: 1965 (Possibly)
- Developer: Marvin Glass
- Publisher: Marvin Glass
- Platform: Board Game
There’s not a lot to say about this game – it’s Tic-Tac-Toe (or Noughts & Crosses), but one person plays as 0 and the other plays as 7. The main significant thing is the rather nice metal casing the game is made in, with rotating parts to swap between blank, 0 and 7.
James Bond 007: Thunderball Game
- Original Release: 1965
- Developer: Milton Bradley
- Publisher: Milton Bradley
- Platform: Board Game
A roll and move James Bond board game was inevitable, but this one has some nice ideas – although clearly inspired by Cluedo.
In this game, you are travelling to 6 different areas to try and identify nuclear bombs – one of them is the real one and the others are fake. Movement is done by dice, you roll two and pick which one you want for your movement and which one to move the spectre agent (who will injure anyone he lands on), although the latter only moves in one direction.
Once you reach an island (which requires an exact roll), you secretly look at the bomb and the triangle token, this will give you a colour and a letter. You then need to return to the centre island an pick a new number island to head towards. Once you’ve looked at all six bombs, you use the code on your sheet to identify which colour is the real bomb, and then head to it to win (if you figure it out early, you still need to have looked at all bombs and filled in the sheet to win).
Instead of heading to an area, you can also choose to go “on the prowl”. You can’t visit any islands, but can move around the board looking for other agents. If you land on one, you will get to look at one of their answers.
It’s quite simple, but has some nice ideas.
James Bond 007 Card Game
- Original Release: 1965
- Developer: Milton Bradley
- Publisher: Milton Bradley
- Platform: Board Game
James Bond’s skill at casino and bluffing games is well known from the books and films, so a bluffing game makes a lot of sense for a James Bond game.
In this bluffing game, each player is dealt three cards – these are numbered 1-7 with a “007” wild card. Two cards are face up with the middle one face down. The object of the game is to get “winning combinations” – which are three of the same number or a straight.
When you have – or want to claim you have – a winning combination, you let it be known. People can bet against you if they don’t think you do. If they call your bluff, you have to give them chips, but if they call you out and you have a winning combination, you get chips off them.
It’s simple, but a nice little filler game.
007
- Original Release: 1965
- Developer: Milton Bradley
- Publisher: Milton Bradley
- Platform: Board Game
This James Bond board game is an abstract strategy board game where you are trying to capture your opponent’s tiles. It’s best placed as a 2v2 game, although the rules do cover 1v1 and 1v2 versions. Red team plays against black team.
The game starts by taking turns to place tiles in a 4×4 grid. These tiles are numbered 1-5 (worth that many points) or have a 007 logo (worth 10 points). More of one colour may appear on the board than another, but the game assuses us that this is “fair”.
Once these have all been placed, the main part of the game appears. Each player picks (face down) one of their B-O-N-D tiles that matches the row they want to use. Once all players have picked, they’re placed on the relevant position. Any crossroads signifies tiles that can be “captured”. Any tiles goes to the side of the opposite colour. Capturing seven tiles ends the game, with the team that has most points being the winner.
This is an interesting little game, but doesn’t really have much to do with James Bond other than the logo on a few tiles and “BOND” being four letters.
007 Underwater Battle from Thunderball
- Original Release: 1965
- Developer: Tri-ang
- Publisher: Tri-ang
- Platform: Board Game
This board game is exactly what the title describes: it lets you play out the Underwater Battle from Thunderball. The game came with pre-painted miniatures, so my Tabletop Simulator version uses some simple royalty free models to represent them,: they’re not accurate, but they get the job done.
Each side has a boss (Bond or Largo) and a squad of frogmen. Bond and Largo can move six spaces, while the rest can only move four. There’s also a SPECRE submarine, which Largo has to escort to Miami or Bond has to capture and take to the US Warships. After you move, you then roll the dice and you can use this to move sharks.
Fighting is quite simple: each larger red square is a “fighting zone”, if opponents are in one you tally up the “fighting score” for each side: 1 for each basic Frogman, 2 for Bond/Largo. The SPECTRE sub reduces the rider’s score by one. If it’s your turn, you can also use sharks to add to your score. The losing side is killed. It’s a very simple system that removes luck from the equation.
It’s a simple game that is almost pure strategy – with the slight exception of dice to help with the unpredictable nature of sharks. The physical figures also look good, so it’s a nice spectacle as well.
The James Bond Box
- Original Release: 1965
- Developer: Waterman’s
- Publisher: Waterman’s
- Platform: Board Game
In this game, everyone takes turns trying to open a briefcase by moving the letters of “James Bond” over numbers and uncovering all the items. On your turn, you roll the two dice and move numbers that perfectly add up to the total shown on the dice. You keep doing this until you move all the numbers or you can’t use the total of the dice, where you record your score based on the numbers you still have showing. The person with the lowest score (or any that open the box) win the game.
This game is more commonly known as “Shut the Box” and has many different versions. The box art for this one is quite nice, though.
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