Games
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First of all, I need to reference my original review here of the Game Crafter version of Flash Point: http://fortressat.com/index.php/articles-boardgame-reviews/2454-flash-point-a-great-firefighting-co-op-game-in-need-of-some-better-roles That review still covers the gist of the game. But it has since had a very successful Kickstarter campaign and now has a very high-quality version (the artwork in particular is fantastic), with a few changes.
The game is probably 95% the same as before, with the main change being the addition of "hot spots" on the board. You add a few hot spots to certain spaces during setup, and if you roll for that space during the Advance Fire stage, you resolve the fire/smoke in that space as usual, and then have to roll for fire again, also adding another hot spot marker to the new space rolled. It's kind of a small addition, but it's not bad. There are also two map boards comprising four locations to play one, one of which may have been a Kickstarter level exclusive, so I'm not sure if everyone will get that with the base game. There are some additional rules for the "high-rise" locations, but I haven't tried those yet. And there are a few other small rule differences in the game, but I can't think offhand what they are; nothing major, though. Essentially, it's the same game as before, which is good.
Unfortunately, the main complaint I had before still remains; the roles are weak. And perhaps they're even worse in some ways. I'm bummed because the publisher asked me to playtest this version after reading my review, but it was during my busiest time of traveling this past summer and I couldn't really do it. I definitely would have bitched about the roles some more. (I did offer one strong piece of advice to change the name back to Flash Point when I heard they were wanting to call the game 911 to the Rescue. I kid you not, that was the working title for a while.) They did make some changes to the roles, and a few are better than they were, but many are still weak or inhibited in a way that feels awkward to play...
I played two games with my girls last night, our first together with the Advanced Game where the roles are used, but we didn't realize until halfway through the first game that two of the roles we were playing with have a little line on the bottom that says "Costs double AP to Extinguish Smoke or Fire." That made both of those characters pretty useless for firefighting, and one of the characters we used in the second game had a restriction that they couldn't do [i]any[/i] firefighting. Imagine if you were playing a 2 player game and drew one of the "costs double AP to extinguish" characters, and the one who can't extinguish at all. How could you possibly win? IMO, a co-op game like this should be possible to win no matter what combination of characters you use... some combinations may be more difficult than others and it may be very difficult regardless (I'm looking at you, Ghost Stories), but I really don't feel like that's the case here. You will be seriously inhibited to win with certain combinations. And I suppose if you know that going in, you can choose certain combinations to be easier or harder, but if you don't know that, you may find your first game or two pretty frustrating.
I just don't think the game needs restrictions like that, which makes those characters feel so castrated, in a sense. As I said in my previous review, imagine playing Pandemic where the Medic has its usual ability, but can only move 1 space per turn. Or Ghost Stories where the Yellow Monk can take any Tao token they want at the start of their turn (as usual), but can never roll the dice. Wha?? Lame.
A few of the roles that IMO most needed updating weren't touched at all, including the Hazmat Technician, the Imaging Specialist and the Driver. They don't have bad abilities, but they're so situational that they just don't seem very interesting to play. Still, at least they don't have a hindrance as they are.
Also, one of the changes they made to the roles is that for the Firefighter, who used to have the restriction that it cost him twice the AP to move. He now has only 3 AP per turn (the normal is 4 actions) but he also has 3 free AP to use to extinguish (he can't save those AP if he doesn't use them). That's fine in terms of its strength, I think, but it gets screwy to keep track of... uh, which AP did I use for which thing now? And two other characters have similar things where they get free AP to use for movement, or to move other players, etc. I just think the roles would be better if the "base" for all of the roles was determined, and then every character had one ability on top of that base (and possibly additional AP if the ability is weaker than others, or one fewer AP if the ability is really strong). Simple, easy to implement, and every ability would be a positive one that makes you feel as though you are contributing more substantially to the cause.
I should add that I don't mind negative abilities at all in some games... Battlestar Galactica gives one negative trait to each character, and a few Arkham Horror characters have a negative ability that offsets what is considered to be something overpowered in another sense. And those are two of my very favorite games. It can be fun to have to deal with that, especially in more involved games that have an almost RPG feel like BSG and AH. But this game, even on its advanced level, feels very light and family oriented, which is great, but it's also very abstract and Euro-y in that sense. (Btw, here's a webpage from a firefighter's POV describing the many thematic problems of this game and offering some possible variants.) Having negative or restrictive abilities just makes the roles feel weak in this case. I would definitely liken this game to Pandemic or Ghost Stories, though, in terms of quality and fun, except that the roles are weak and wonky. That really brings it down a big notch for me. Too bad, as there was a great opportunity to improve them for this snazzy new version. I had previously suggested some alternative roles, and also to have double-sided role cards with a basic ability and an advanced ability (which could include a negative trait for advanced players). They ended up having double-sided role cards after all, but only to have English on one side and German on the other. Oh, well...
Another thing is that there seems to be a pretty wide disparity between the basic family version and the advanced version, in terms of difficulty. The basic family game is way too easy to beat, and the easiest level on the advanced game can seem really difficult, especially if you have lame roles that can't extinguish any fire. I suppose there are ways to tweak the difficulty from there and find a mid-point (I guess a simple thing would be to leave out either the hot spots or hazmat), but it would have been nice if the rules contained that to begin with.
Anyway, despite my continued disappointment about the roles, Flash Point: Fire Rescue is great for what it is, and this production is outstanding and worth supporting. I'd rate it a 7.5 out of 10 (would be 9 if the roles were better).
