Tuesday, November 08, 2005

The Mousetrap

Last night, in a vain hope to keep hold of my studentdom, we went to Tesco's Old Swan (which, incidentally, do not sell them) in a student-esque "Shit! We've got the car for a weekend! Lets go shopping!" pilgramage.

The students amongst you know the score. You set out with all but good intentions and only get the essentials. However, you return with beer, stuff to run a kiddies party, beer, chocolate, more beer, and a board game or two (such as the last time, when Guy returned with Simpsons Monopoly, despite the fact it was £10 more expensive than regular Monopoly). Last night was almost the case, as - despite the fact I had already been to the supermarket earlier that day for milk and chips - I felt I'd missed out on "essentials", such as Pepsi Max, Crisps and....very nearly....Mousetrap.

I used to love mousetrap as a kid, I remember a TV show with a 50 foot high version of it, and they captured prizes using the trap, all remarkably exciting. Anyway, despite not having it too long (I used to break it a lot, as it was very flimsy), it still remains one of my absolute favourite board games ever.

The bad thing is that, even in my extremely dire financial state, I would of bought it, if not for one thing my mate said.

"You know they've changed it, and made it shit."

Apparently so, on closer inspection of the box, there is now 3 traps, as opposed to one long one. That defeats the whole purpose of the game as you're supposed to play whilst the ridiculously long-to-implement trap was running (part of the beauty of the Penalope Pitstop Cartoons were that the traps the Hooded Claw set up took so long, it built up intreague). Also, you begin with the entire trap set up, and that's just cheating. Part of the joy of the original was to build the trap as you went along. Why change such a good formula?

I left Tesco's incensed, and contemplated emailing Hasbro to find out what the craic was, and whether the origional one was still available.

If not, eBay me do!