When is a video game not a video game? PETER HOSKIN reviews this week’s games

The Lord of the Rings: Voyages in Middle-earth (£109.99)

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The Quest for Planet X (£44.99)

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When is a video game not a video game? Why, when it’s a board game, of course.

There have been, in recent years, numerous crossovers between these two gaming disciplines. Board game adaptations of video games. Video game adaptations of board games.

But the shape that captured my attention at Christmas, when the family wasn’t quite right, was a more intriguing hybrid shape: the app-assisted board game.

These combine the very tactile experience of counters, cards, and dice with the square-eyed experience of pressing the screen of a phone or tablet. When he goes out, both experiences add up.

Lord Of The Rings: Journeys In Middle-Earth (£109.99) comes in a box that’s almost as bulky as Tolkien’s book; inside are hundreds of beautifully illustrated cards

The game allows for hours and hours of exploration, especially if you add any of the Journeys In Middle-Earth expansion sets

And it comes off very well in The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth (****, £109.99). This app-assisted board game comes in a box that’s almost as bulky as Tolkien’s book; Inside are hundreds of beautifully illustrated cards, dozens of small cardboard landscapes, and a set of highly detailed plastic miniatures. Setting the thing up is an onerous pursuit in itself.

Then you download the app, which not only enhances the atmosphere of your tabletop sessions, though it certainly does, with moving music and stories, but also guides you and up to four others through various campaigns against the envious agents. of Sauron.

Where to place map tiles; what happens inside each one; the mood swings of the goblins and balrogs… all these things are controlled by the app. And thanks to its digital brainpower, no two games play out exactly the same way.

It’s hours and hours of exploring, especially if you add any of the Journeys In Middle-Earth expansion sets, although, keep in mind, in the spirit of the Ringbearer’s task, it can be quite a challenge.

The Search For Planet X (£44.99) is a more traditional type of board game where you and up to three others compete to discover a new planet in the depths of space.

There are a lot of monsters, maybe too many fights, and getting out of the campaigns unscathed is almost impossible.

Still, I enjoyed this one enough that I’m now looking at Descent: Legends Of The Dark assisted by the same company’s app. More monsters. More fights. And an even bigger box.

In the meantime, however, The Search For Planet X (****, £44.99) has been a welcome change of pace. This is a more traditional type of board game where you and up to three others compete to discover a new planet in the depths of space.

Think of it as a scientific, intergalactic version of Cluedo: it was the gas cloud, in Sector 1, with the peer-reviewed paper describing its existence…

Application, in this case, is a more clinical matter. It’s there to randomize the selection of celestial bodies on the board, as well as provide players with new information about the night sky. But it ends up adding to the fun enormously, as you protect your phone and its secret knowledge from the eyes of rival astronomers.

Now just give me Cluedo itself, with an app that lets you date Miss Scarlet. That would certainly have helped make Christmas go merry.