Game review 91: Tornado Rex
That's a nice money-making cartoon-character tie-in your game's got there. Shame if something were to… happen to it…
(Scene: A cluttered, slightly dusty office, the design and marketing department at the Parker Brothers headquarters, circa early 1991. Posters depicting the box art of titles such as Shadowlord and Pay Day line the walls. BOSS – sporting a chunky brown suit, blue shirt and aviator sunglasses, which must make working in a poorly lit office difficult – is tapping away on an Amstrad computer’s keyboard, content with his day’s work promoting and launching mass-market, family-orientated board games. Suddenly, the door opens and a man wearing a turquoise-and-purple shell-suit and neon-yellow bum-bag, GEOFF, early twenties, bursts in. He appears frazzled, worried. His hair, short and layered at the back, is as dishevelled as short hair, layered at the back, can appear.)
GEOFF: Boss, terrible news! The absolute worst.
BOSS: Well, spit it out, old bean! It can’t be that bad, can it? We here at Parker Brothers are riding a wave, what with our astonishing, brand-new mass-market game due for imminent release. An absolute triumph of spectacle and grandeur. Why, look at this magnificent board (he points enthusiastically at an elaborate, expensive-looking piece of moulded plastic, the Pop Swatch watch on his wrist jangling merrily) – a 3D mountain, no less, and this cutting-edge spinning contraption. You could say, Geoff, that we shall be riding the “whirlwind” (he performs the hand gestures as he says the word) of success!
GEOFF: That’s just it, Boss. It’s Taz, sir… they’ve… Oh God… they’ve pulled out.
BOSS: Who? The Tasmanian Devil?
GEOFF: Yes. That one. Whose image, characteristics and mannerisms we’re wholesale relying on to promote this incredibly expensive-to-produce plaything that we’re sending to the shops in far too short a time frame for us to be in any way relaxed about.
BOSS: So the whirly lad has let us down, eh? The absolute rotter! Well, it’s just a little a trifle. Stuff and nonsense. Come on, Geoff, show some spunk! If there’s one thing I know, it’s the marketing and launching of mass-market family-orientated board games. Let’s workshop this. Are you going to let this little pickle trample all over your day? Hmm? No, let’s go with what we know – this Taz fellow, what butters his biscuits?
GEOFF: What, sir?
BOSS: Taz! You numbskull, aren’t you listening? It’s simple. There’s a catalogue of telly shows that reveal exactly what this Australian chap likes. Had you not thought to entice him back to us with anything you know he’ll appreciate before blustering up to my office like a monkey with a hand grenade, causing all these unnecessary problems?
GEOFF: I… I… The thi–
BOSS: No offerings at all? Blocky, dubiously shaped, but significantly large chunks of meat? A Santa sleigh he can consume, festive presents and all? An anthropomorphic carrot-eating rabbit dressed seductively like a Lady Taz? We know he likes these from all the documentaries that we see regularly on the TV – generally working as a five-minute stop-gap in the schedules between EastEnders’ Omnibus edition and Songs of Praise – in the year of Our Lord, 1991!
GEOFF: I’m so sorry, sir, I’ll try to do bett– hang on… if I may be so bold, sir, I’m not entirely sure you under–
BOSS: What are you blithering on about, Geoff? Come on, man. Spit it out!
GEOFF: Well, sir, I don’t quite know how to say this, but… those “documentaries” (he performs the hand-quotes)… they’re… just cartoons, sir. Looney Tunes, sir.
BOSS: Looney. Tunes. Geoff?
GEOFF: Yes, Looney Tunes, sir.
BOSS: You idiot, Geoff! You oaf! Why has this never been brought to my attention before? (He pauses, then strokes his chin.) Well, there’s no use crying over chopped cheese now. Though, it does rather explain why, when I saunter around a canyon and absent-mindedly throw a coyote off a cliff-face, it immediately plummets to the ground rather than stay suspended in the air for several seconds like I’ve been led to believe. But, OK Geoff, you got us into this mess, now get us out of it. What do you propose?
GEOFF: Well, sir, if I may, sir, given that the astronomical cost of mass-producing a game with a giant plastic-molded board – not to mention this large diamond-shaped spinning component representing the central character – was offset by the marketing pull of a beloved pop culture icon – who is no longer at our disposal – the only sensible option is to shelve the whole project. Luckily, as this board here is the sole prototype and we haven’t entered into production yet, we can escape this whole sorry endeavour at a minimal co–
BOSS: Oh, bravo, Geoff! I see where this is going: Stay precisely on schedule but tweak this “Taz” (he performs the hand-quotes) character a little but not so much that, were we to enter a legal dispute with a corporate entertainment industry monolith such as Warner Bros, we couldn’t be absolutely certain that we wouldn’t be financially ruined? What a splendid brain! Where do you get these magnificent ideas from?
(BOSS launches a party popper, to GEOFF’s horror, non-sarcastically)
GEOFF: OK Boss, I’m not quite sure that’s what I said, but I guess–
BOSS: Make him green!
GEOFF: Green?
BOSS: With purple hair! Lob a bit of blue in there, too. And make his teeth slightly less pointy – we don’t want to give the kiddies nightmares, do we? Keep the maniacal expression and change nothing else whatsoever!
GEOFF: (sweating profusely now) Sir, this is all lovely stuff, but do you think we could just, maybe, rewind to a few moments ago–
BOSS: OK Geoffrey, you’ve twisted my arm, with your charisma. We’ll add a few pink spots in there, too, to be on the safe side. That should throw them off the scent. And I know what you’re thinking about a name! We’ll emphasise his spinning-around nature but hint that he’s a dinosaur and not an Aussie mammal. Now, there’s no time to waste…
(BOSS picks up the phone from his desk, and begins turning the rotary dial around before waiting for a response.)
BOSS: Hullo? Is that manufacturing? Yes, Slight change to that Taz game. It’s Tornado Rex now. Yes, T-Rex! Brilliant, isn’t it? “Tornado Rex: It's not Taz, but it's still… pretty good!” On second thoughts, scrap that tagline. I’m just faxing through my new sketches for the main character. Oh no, don’t thank me, thank my friend Geoff here! It’s his masterplan. He’ll have his name up in lights for this! Now, make this initial print run absolutely massive. Huge! The first of many, one presumes. Get the adverts ready. But make the lyrics on it near-indecipherable and ensure our chap says “Call me Rex” at the end to head off anyone watching from thinking *Hang on, isn’t that just a cheap, tawdry Taz knock-off created for a game that quite obviously was made with the famous cartoon character in mind, but had something go disastrously wrong between its design and release? Why would I want that?* Because that’s the last thing we’d wish for. Brilliant… Alrighty… Love you.
(He puts down the phone.)
GEOFF: Boss, please…
BOSS: Action stations, Geoff! This is your ingenious plan. I’m counting on you. Make sure it happens.
(Cut to: A warehouse, late 1992. A dizzying wall of hundreds of unsold gigantic Tornado Rex boxes line the shelves. Looking up at this towering edifice stands BOSS and GEOFF).
BOSS: Geoffrey?
GEOFF: Yes boss?
BOSS: Pulp and destroy the lot of them. I never want to see this game ever again. With any luck, we can wipe out all trace of it. After that, Geoff…
GEOFF: Yes boss?
BOSS: You’re fired.
Thirty-four years on from one of the more bewildering board game releases of all time, we do have to thank Parker Brothers and their rather childlike optimism in the face of acute adversity. Deprived of a money-making tie-in, it would’ve been easy to scrap the project and therefore cast a gloriously unique, curiosity-shop item such as Tornado Rex into non-existence.
But here it is. Sat in my living room, with my daughter dancing round with glee around it. Its two-piece board depicting a winding, diverting mountain trail, up to its summit lair, where Taz Rex lurks.
We’ve spoken before about our love of games with toy appeal. Components that you’d want to use in their own right, not just in the context of their use in a rulebook. Tornado Rex has this by the bucketload.
The chief fun factor – apart from that blockbuster board – is the Tornado Rex spinning vortex. Placed in the mountaintop lair component and then wound up, it lies in wait for players. Their pieces, who start at the base camp square, are assorted hikers of varying hues, but look suspiciously like the looting colonialist nerds who turn up as the ‘heroes’ in approximately 97% of board games of this era.
But don’t worry, they’ll get their comeuppance: the mountain is climbed through a spinner rather than dice (though some versions feature cards for movement instead), which dictate how many spaces each player can move on their turn. ‘Rolling’ a Taz Tornado Rex spot will see the creature of indeterminant origin released, paving a trail of chaos as the spinner descends down the path to the bottom. Any playing piece knocked over moves to the space where they’ve landed (which, if you’re lucky, can include being moved forward). Sent sprawling off a cliff? Count your lucky stars that you get to start over at base camp rather than out the game.
There are other special moves. A ‘copter means you can put your playing piece on the same space where any other player is. Some ‘rolls’ give the options of moving a set number of spaces or switching places with someone else.
Guide your playing pieces all the way to the top, past the lair, to the lookout point before anyone else and you win the game.
Strategy? Oh, you want to do some thinking when presented with an attention-grabbing spinny thing? Well, there is some. A speck, perhaps. Each player has two playing pieces, so there’s a choice to be made about who goes up the mountain when. Different paths present different dangers, while there is a push-your-luck opportunity with safe zones, where players can pause their move and hide out in a cave, away from Rex’s attention (although there is still a slim chance of being found and hauled out of safety, even then). Spaces are big, too, so there’s an element of playing your adventurer on a patch of turf that you think would be hard for an enthusiastic, copyright-bothering creature to get to.
But that said, it’s all sheer dumb luck. And in this case, it never gets old. Rex will unleash unpredictable terror on every spin. The only downside of which is that he can be a little too effective, meaning players going back to the start too often will result in games dragging. But that means more spinning. Which is what you want, isn’t it?
Playing with a child is of course, going to be a delightful experience – faced with this scenario they’re always going to be overjoyed. But there is a ‘but’ and it’s a big one…
That any commercial tie-in didn’t come to fruition, clearly a marketing disaster, meant Tornado Rex’s print run was limited. Given that plastic 3D board are difficult to maintain, especially when you’re pushing down on it with a giant spinning device, and the huge storage issue the giant box presents, the number of copies in good condition available has reduced over the years. Therefore, prices online for a copy are eye-wateringly high, making it one of the most expensive games of this era to pick up.
Is the game worth an exorbitant price tag? No. But are you going to want to play it at least once in your life? As a curio and a spectacle – if not a head-scratching piece of strategic genius – absolutely yes. More museum piece than modern game, if you ever get a chance to give Rex a spin, take it. But watch your wallet.
Game facts and stats
Ages
6+
Year published
1991
Publisher
Parker Brothers
Designer
Uncredited
Player count
2–4
E’s review
What do you like best about the game?
“It’s a fun game and it’s also tricky. I thought it would be easy in the first place. That he just spins and I love that but be careful because it’s very hard to press down Tornado Rex to work. And it doesn’t even need any battery. We have to move and Tornado Rex keeps on coming down and I screamed cos Tornado Rex kept on knocking me down.”
Is it tricky?
“I think it is but be warned because Tornado Rex is coming to get you!”
Marks out of 10?
“100/10”
My review
Set-up time
About five minutes. The trickier bit is getting everything back in, what with the fragility of the game board.
Price
Astronomical. Anything under £200 and you can consider that you’ve got yourself a bargain. As such, unless this is a personal grail game, don’t even consider shelling out.
Practicality
With a box taking up more space, if not more weight, than the likes of Frosthaven, Tornado Rex requires a big chunk of storage. Care will need to be kept of that same box, the board and the spinner, especially with the accompanying price tag.
Fun for parents?
A blast. One to treasure with the kids, as well as showing off to the right game group. But the cost does drag down the score.
7/10
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