CLUE: Cool Spies and Avada Kedavra

I'm moving out of my apartment and into a town home in less than 2 weeks, so I'm currently busy dusting and scrubbing and vacuuming and stuff. (Hey, I have a vacuum cleaner! Who knew?) I've even started taking down all the beerymids and deconstructing the furniture I made out of mostly empty pizza boxes! Mom would be proud.

Anyway, I swung by the store to pick up some cleaning supplies and happened to pass the game aisle and my eye caught sight of this: Clue (Secrets and Spies). At first I didn't see the "Secret and Spies" part of it, and just thought that Clue got all hepped up on crazy pills. On the box: "Get game changing spy texts sent to your phone!" What the frick?! How many games did you play as a kid that involved getting text messages? And can you even play this if you don't have a cell phone? (I'm not sure- there weren't any reviews on Amazon).

I flipped over the box. All the characters are agents now. Agent Scarlett, Agent Mustard, Agent Peacock, etc. And instead of going to the library or the conservatory I guess they go to Tokyo or Paris. Which sounds a lot more like "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" than Clue, but whatever.

The last thing I noticed was a score tally on the side of the board. You start as a "Novice Spy" and get points somehow to work your way up the spy hierarchy. It goes Novice Spy, Cool Spy, Ace Spy, Master Spy, Super Spy and finally Ultimate Spy. I don't think the hierarchy is very good. When I think of spies, I think of James Bond. And when I think of James Bond, I think "Cool Spy." And if I were playing Clue: Secrets and Spies, I'd be pretty content calling it a day after achieving "Cool Spy" status. And furthermore, I'd make fun of any spy who was called an "Ace Spy", even if that meant they could kill me in an awesome way with a crazy gadget (like a cellphone! Aaah!)

In looking over the other Clue boards on Amazon, it looks like regular Clue got modernized and now Col. Mustard is a football player or some B.S. Harry Potter Clue looks like more fun that the Secrets and Spies one, though it doesn't look like there's a murder victim in this one. "Dumbledore was killed by Snape in the Tower with Avada Kedavra!" or "Cedric Diggory was killed by Voldemort in the Cemetary with Avada Kedavra!" ...Okay, so maybe the "murder weapon" would be pretty easy to figure out in that version.