Anyone trying the revamped Sportsclix? Options

[Scammer]

WizKids probably shot themselves in the foot BIG time when they revamped the Sportsclix game (making the '04 clix non-compatible with the '05 game). That marketing mess aside, anyone snag the '05 game yet? (they were released ahead of schedule by your friends at Toys R Us).

Being a baseball nut, I couldn't resist (although I never bought the '04 game). Tell ya what, the sculpts are nice, the game is fairly easy and straightforward, and best of all, it's fun. Although, I still drag out my old APBA game and Pursue the Pennant baseball board games on rainy afternoons (which drives my wife nuts...but that's a different story for a different time). The game certainly has it's downside (not as detail oriented as I'd like, not as many figs released in the intial set as I'd like, but there are 2 expansions planned this year).

Just wondering if anyone else out there has looked at this game?

[JasonPotapoff]

Well if the game is fun then it is a big improvement over the first one. I picked up the first one played a game or two and thought it was fun so went out and bought a bunch of figures. Unfortunatly after playing 3 games I realized that it wasn't that fun of a game and had 0 strategy in it and simulated baseball VERY poorly. Tthe first verson is pretty much a game of waiting for you to hit a home run as it's really hard to score any other way. Picking which die you use when pitching or batting is mostly random there's no real stragey involved in it and positioning your fielders is about the same (other than to cover a specific spot if a batter hits more often to one specific zone and none at all to another zone). And the starting pitchers get stronger as the game goes along since they click up a LOT easier than clicking down. (usually you build up enough positive clicks on your starter that by the time he strts taking a click due to going over his end that you can squeeze at least 2 more innings out of him. Which means starters last into 8th inning with it being a break even strategy for you to replace your starter with a closer in the 9th since the reliever starts at a normal setting instead of coming in hot. )

So now i've got a bunch of figures that won't work with the new version of the game and a game that's actually rather boring to play after a couple of times. UNfortunatly my dad seems to love it and is always bugging me to play a game with him. So I have to sit through a 2 hour game (it's be quicker if I didn't keep stats but how can you play a baseball game and not keep stats?). Perhaps i'll dig out an old sports illustrated board game that we used to play when I was a kid and take a look at it. I think I would enjoy it a lot more. The first version of SPorts clicks is just a very blah game. Roll some dice and hope you get a good result, repeat, over and over...

I'm not even going to take a first look at the new version. They screwed me over with this game so badly that there's no way i'm going to sink more money into it. Yes the game needed an over haul as version 1 was just a poor all around game. But they should never have relased version 1. Whizkids had to figured out how poor of a game it was in playtesting, ow it didn't play or feel like baseball, wasn't fun at all, and had little to no strategy, and should have put it on hold and revamp it before releasing it. Instead of putting it out, selling TWO sets for it (when they knew that the game wasn't good and wans't received that well and still put out that second set) then making an entirely new system which the rest of the figures were invalid for. Since they didn't do that and clearly they needed to revamp the rules to make it a decent game they should have figured out a way to improve the game without throwing out all of the first figures.

Either way Whizkids messed up big time and there's no way i'm sinking more money into that franchise. It also makes me leary of going with any new game Whizkids puts out since i'm not confident that they won't do it again (put out a substandard game then thorwing it out with a revamped set of rules instead of spending more time developing a good game in the first place).

[Scammer]

I know where you're coming from. WizKids did a very poor job with the first game on several fronts. They didn't market it well, they didn't playtest it well, and to compound their problems, they made the 2005 game completely incompatible with the 2004 game. Alienated the only loyal following that they had, so now, they've got to start from scratch. But, in WizKids defense, they had a product that wasn't selling (mainly because WizKids didn't know HOW to sell it). The gamers didn't want a sports themed game and the sports freaks were in the gaming stores.

The new game is simpler than the original. Scoring is up. The stragedy aspect is gone to a certain degree. But if you want stragedy, the new Strat-O-Matic is supposed to be "da bomb". The sculpts are better with the '05 product. And WizKids IS offering a rebate to those with the '04 set who want to trade it in on an '05 set. I've played a handful of games and get scores in the 6-12 run area. I've only one decent pitcher thus far (Jason Schmidt) and he did manage to go 8 innings having only given up 2 runs. So, with the right pitcher, it's possible to get low scoring games.

On the bright side, the '04 game and figs are going CHEAP on ebay! With booster boxes insanely low!