We found this boardgame in a charity shop at the weekend. It’s a lavish game with good production values and a nice game mechanism, very similar to the much-loved Judge Dredd Boardgame. Players, controlling any or all the PPGs at a time, move a space or two around Townsville by means of card play and turn over tiles which usually contain a villain. They then roll a dice to fight the villain, needing to roll a certain number of hearts to beat them and collect the tile.
The game is well designed and the play works but there’s a certain lack of variety. The rules specify that the winner is the first to capture 4 villains – in fact this happens within a couple of turns so extending the requirement is a good idea. There are a few special cards which affect gameplay but not enough to stop things becoming repetitive. It’s a shame because it means the verve and imagination of the TV series quickly go missing. The villains list is present and correct though as with a lot of PPG tie-ins Him is missing – quite why merchandisers are so shy of a camp pink devil is a mystery!