Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Greatest Game Ever Played? - Review of Battlestar Galactica: The Boardgame

When I’m looking for a boardgame, I’m not always looking for theme.  Theme certainly helps, but sometimes I really like the interesting mechanics and the theme is really secondary.  There are other times where theme can make or break a game for me.  But if I have fun playing it, that’s the main thing.
So what can I say about this particular game?  The first thing, my wife is a nasty, nasty Cylon and doesn’t even hide it.  Second, I have never played a game of this that I haven’t enjoyed.  It is a cooperative game with a bit of twist.  So you’re all fighting towards a goal together and the twist is that people you think are helping you may not be what they seem to be.
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$10 says the old dude in the Ravens Jersey is a Cylon Bastard!  That fracking toaster!
What’s the game all about?  Well first off, it really does help if you’ve watched the TV series produced by Sy-Fy Channel.  The first season or two should be enough for you to get a real flavor for the game.  But really, it’s about the same thing that the TV show is about.  Humans on the planet Caprica are suddenly all but exterminated by a nuclear event engineered by the Cylons.  Who are the Cylons?  They are robots humans created to help with work.  Unfortunately, they started thinking and revolted against Caprica.  They were beaten back, came back with the ability to look and act like humans, and they worked their way into the inner workings and everything went boom.  Now the only Battlestar left in the fleet has to escort civilian ships on a race to escape extinction at the hands of the Cylons.  But they don’t know who could be a Cylon!
So the game is basically you as one of the main characters and you MAY be a Cylon.  Only you know for sure.  Therein lies the fun.  You aren’t sure who’s a Cylon while you’re plan but there’s at least one and possibly more depending on the number of players.  A turn is fairly simply where you draw your skill cards, move and then do an action.  After you do an action by either playing a card or activating a spot that you moved to on the ship or attacking Cylons if you’re a pilot, then you reveal the event for your turn and it ALWAYS has bad things on it.  It determines what type of attack the Cylons do, if you get closer to preparing to jump (preparing to jump is basically a term for jumping to hyperspace and getting the hell out of Dodge), and then the event itself which can either drop tons of cylons on you or be an event that you or maybe the President or Admiral has to decide what to do.
To break the event cards down further, sometimes you will need to play skills cards of certain types to add up to the numbers indicated on the card.  Sometimes if you fail big, you really feel the pain, sometimes there are lesser bad things that can happen.  But the part this unique is everyone hands their skill cards in face down and then the person who drew the event puts his in AND two random cards from a seeded deck.  Now, if you play a color that isn’t on the event card, it counts against you, if it’s on the card it counts positive for you.  The two random cards can sometimes help or sometimes hurt.  The beautiful thing is, the Cylon player(s) can throw in negatively impacting cards and you don’t necessarily know who the heck put those cards in there.  Next thing you know, everyone is pointing fingers.  This is one of the best aspects of the game. 
Once a Cylon is revealed, he isn’t out of the game.  At that point the Cylon can cause a lot more havoc.  More power in some ways, weaker in others.  I think it is best of hide until they’re ready to throw you in the brig and then you really burn em for not putting you in it sooner.
Another great thing about the game is the characters.  The characters are all the main characters from the show with special advantage and disadvantages that come into play quite a bit.  Like Tigh is a drunk so you’re constantly having problems with that weakening you.  You also have Admiral and President roles that have their own perks.  President gets political cards which are quite powerful and the Admiral gets control of the Nukes!  They also have to make decisions at times and a lot of the time you want to be the one making those decisions instead of leaving it in “less qualified” hands.
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So let’s see how it stacks up!
Interaction: (5 out of 5 stars)  Absolutely one of the most interactive games you can play with other people.  You’re constantly second guessing and sometimes scheming to work things to your advantage or to just survive.
Ease:  (3 out of 5 stars)  This is a rating that shows how easy it is to play.  The game is easy to play, harder to teach, but even harder to learn.  That said it isn’t bad, but it isn’t super easy.  When I teach it, I simplify it a lot and then we kind of show as we go because it’s actually very simply when you get going.
Rules: (4 out of 5 stars)  These are some of the better rules I’ve seen from Fantasy Flight Games and they did an excellent job with it.  Everything is pretty clearly explained and easily found.  The exact polar opposite of another favorite of mine, Arkham Horror.  Players aids are a plus if you print those out.
Theme: (5 out of 5 stars)  Dripping with theme and it feels like you’re in an episode of BSG! 
Replayability: (5 out of 5 stars)  I could play this over and over again!  Each game feels like a new adventure!  Plus there is an expansion for added replayability.
Mechanics: (4 out of 5 stars)  Very simple mechanics with clever ideas on how to make it so a Cylon isn’t revealing themselves.  Plus a turn doesn’t take too long so that’s well thought out.  Not much downtime as there is always something fairly interesting going on.  The battle stuff isn’t anything too ground breaking but it is very serviceable without being complicated.
Fun Factor: (5 out of 5 stars)  Wow is this game just fun!  I can’t even do it justice.  There’s so much going on and wondering if you’ll survive makes this a must play game!
Bonus Points: Length of the Game is about right at 2 hours this doesn’t feel too long at all.  1 point bonus for that.  Clean-up is a bit of a pain, as can be set-up, –1 point.  Box, pretty standard but solid fair, no extra here.  Components are pretty decent quality but the star chits are annoying to punch out, nothing too special here though, dials are damned hard to put on.  No bonus points there either. 
The Total:  31 out of 35 points for this bad boy!  However, if you don’t care much for the theme, a heavy caution is in place on this one!  As much as I love it, mileage may vary.  If you like sci-fi or BSG, this is a MUST buy!
For more information on this and many more games, please visit BoardGameGeek.com!

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