dmNorthTV and Guests play board games!! Saturday nights, we get together with friends and try and play a stream friendly board game. It is usually a fun get together with great people. A time to enjoy to social aspect of gaming that we are lacking right now.
Here, you will find our short and sweet review on the board game we have played from each of the players. We stream the gameplay on the dmNorthTV Twitch channel every Saturday. Come hangout and say “Hi” if you get a chance.
Saturday, we played through Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game. Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is a 1 to 4 player game where you produced by The OP. In this game, you play through the events of the wholesome Christmas movie Die Hard.
This is a one versus many style game. One player will take the role of John McClane, while the others will gang up as the exceptional thieves led by Hans Gruber. The game takes place over three Acts the represent parts of the motion picture.
John McClane’s objective is to make it to Act III and kill Hans Gruber. The thieves can win the game by killing John McClane, or successfully cracking the safe and stealing $640 million in bearer bonds. Both sides will work through their individual decks in order to complete their objectives. The objectives are unique to each Act, and are based on events of the movie.
We were joined by RonathanPxPx as we play through the first two Acts of Die Hard: The Nakatomi Board Game. You can take a look at our gameplay video on our YouTube channel, or scroll on down to see what we thought of the game.
Final Thoughts About . . . Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game
Here, we will give you some basic thoughts about the game we played. This is by no means meant to be an in-depth review of the game, as there are already lots of those out there. This is just a “what did we think of it and would it be a good board game night game” type thing. If you want to see something more in-depth, please let us know in the comments below.
Rating System
- 5 Meeples: Fantastic Game, A must-play game!
- 4 Meeples: Great Game, minor flaws.
- 3 Meeples: Good Game, some weaknesses.
- 2 Meeples: OK Game, needs work.
- 1 Meeple: Awful Game. Do not play this unless you want to punish yourself.
jourdo
This will be a tale of two reviews… One of the gaming experience, and one of the product itself. Going into this game, I had very low expectations as I had not read a lot of good things about it. Maybe it was the Christmas Spirit in the air? Maybe it was the lack of sleep? Either way… I loved this gameplay experience!
I took on the role of John McClane (mostly to make online organization easier). John’s life it tied to his deck of cards. If I run out, I am dead… and there are plenty of ways to burn through cards. Obviously, using them uses up the deck… but any time I take damage, a card is discarded. I found I had to balance my playstyle between finishing my objectives quickly vs playing as many cards as possible in each Act.
But you just said that playing cards burns through your deck faster and could kill you… why would you do that? Here’s the rub… Each card you use in an early Act will be playable in the next Act. These cards become more powerful in later Acts, so you want to pull as much as you can from Act to Act.
From an experience, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is one of the enjoyable games I have played. It gets a solid 5/5 for that reason alone. I felt like I was playing the movie. There were moments where I could visualize the cinematic moments I was creating. The dropping the bomb down the elevator shaft while simultaneously shooting at two Thieves stands out for me. The mechanics of the game are solid and totally fit the theme of the movie. Components are solid, and the board design is excellent given that you are playing three different Acts.
Now for the bad. I have nothing against the gaming experience at all. My only issue is replay value. The Acts have the same objectives each time. There is no changing that. The only randomness is where on the board they are located. Otherwise, John McClane is going to do the same thing in every game. Strategy is not really going to change from game to game. I can see myself maybe playing it once more to play as the thieves, but I do not see myself playing again as McClane. That knocks down the score a bit if you want to add this to your collection. If you can find it cheap enough, I think it is worth it. Otherwise, find a friend who has it and have a blast over the holidays playing through Die Hard!
SuperK
SuperKI didn’t know what to expect going into this game as I knew it existed but never looked at details about it. I watched a how to play video and kinda tuned out BUT going in with no expectations, it was super fun!.
Ron and I were both the thieves and Matt played as John. As the thief you need to complete a set of locks to get the mulla, all while also trying to slow down John from completing his objectives. This was all card based and was a very neat mechanic on how the thieves unlocked locks and did their actions around the board. I didn’t know what Ron was going to play which made the strategic part challenging. Three cards would be played and the outer cards determined the lock numbers and the middle card your actions. We also had objectives which helped with locks.
There are three acts and we went through two. I am excited to play the next act as the board changes for each act making it a bit more harder. The only thing I found as the thief is to also try and balance getting your locks but also hurting John as if we damage him, he loses cards which helps the thieves to win.
I found the game moved smoothly and no huge complaints other then, there isn’t much replay value. The objectives do not change, leading to the same gameplay. You can switch roles and play as John if you haven’t, but that’s about it.
RonathanPxPx
What can I say about this One against All board game (other than this will be a review in progress, we have only played 2 out of the 3 acts)? Oh the nostalgia is huge with this great Christmas game, and yes I said it because Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
In this game you either take on the role as John McClane vs 1-3 players taken on the roles of “Thieves”. You are not any particular thief, you control multiple thieves each act and the active player has the final say for all thief actions that turn. As John McClane your job is to rescue hostages and your wife from the “Thieves” and as the “Thieves” you are trying to stop McClane by damaging him (this causes him to discard the top of his deck and he loses when his deck runs out) or McClane loses when they unlock all 7 locks to complete the Nakatomi vault heist.
Each act also has objectives for both sides. Short term objectives for McClane to get items, eliminate thieves, and get to an exit so he can move on to the next act. The Thieves have both short term objectives to help discard McClane’s deck and long term objectives to disable locks that carry over your progress into future acts. It took us 2 hours to get through 2 Acts and I am having a blast so far. In the first act you are getting used to the mechanics and movements so it feels great for both McClane and the Thieves. The action and nostalgia really kicks in when you get to Act 2 where as McClane you have to throw a thief out a window and use the vents as well as the famous “shoot the glass” scene for the thieves.
The mechanics are simple and sold for this game as you get 3 actions per turn. There is a turn order where McClane goes first and the thieves respond in turn. Plus the cool mechanic is that the board changes every act which makes it refreshing. I don’t know how this game will hold up in the replay value but I am having a blast playing now.
4 Meeples so far… can’t wait to finish it.
If you are interested in getting a copy of Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game for yourself, please check out one of the best online board game stores in Canada… Board Game Bliss. Clicking through that referral link helps the site out and we thank you for that.
Anyone is welcome to play board games with us. If you have a game you would like to see streams, please let us know. The only limitation (beyond actually owning the game) is that they must be stream friendly as we are playing it remotely. Let us know in the comments below, on our Socials (@dmNorthTV), or join the conversation on our Discord.
Thanks for reading!
dmNorthTV
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