Front Page

Content

Authors

Game Index

Forums

Site Tools

Submissions

About

KK
Kevin Klemme
March 09, 2020
35171 2
Hot
KK
Kevin Klemme
January 27, 2020
20839 0
Hot
KK
Kevin Klemme
August 12, 2019
7430 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
December 19, 2023
3981 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
December 14, 2023
3507 0
Hot

Mycelia Board Game Review

Board Game Reviews
O
oliverkinne
December 12, 2023
2080 0
O
oliverkinne
December 07, 2023
2587 0

River Wild Board Game Review

Board Game Reviews
O
oliverkinne
December 05, 2023
2258 0
O
oliverkinne
November 30, 2023
2500 0
J
Jackwraith
November 29, 2023
3022 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
November 28, 2023
1973 0
S
Spitfireixa
October 24, 2023
3697 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
October 17, 2023
2626 0
O
oliverkinne
October 10, 2023
2463 0
O
oliverkinne
October 09, 2023
2291 0
O
oliverkinne
October 06, 2023
2510 0

Outback Crossing Review

Board Game Reviews
×
Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.

× Talk about the latest and greatest AT, and the Classics.

Gears of War Officially Out Of Print

More
30 Jan 2015 15:17 #196536 by Green Lantern
Looking forward to your article, Gary. I'm new to Gears as well but the couple of plays I have under the belt give me high hopes that this title has legs. We've finished the first mission only and we just managed to pull it off and that was in large part to a couple of well placed bolo grenades. Rules are pretty simple but the abstract movement and cover gave us fits. We had a time remembering to add in range and cover penalties when attacking/defending and using the command cards for their reaction bonuses was tricky.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
31 Jan 2015 10:51 - 31 Jan 2015 13:31 #196589 by Gary Sax
Re: Gears.

I must admit to you all that the one big AT genre I’ve never been that into is dudes in a corridor. I like Warhammer Quest, it’s cool, but I’ve never had a need to get it again since I had it in middle school. I am NOT a fan of Descent v1, and v2 isn’t anything I enjoy particularly either. By contrast, Gears of War is awesome, the best Dudes in a Corridor game I’ve played. But it’s rough. I’ve only played about 6 games solo, on scenarios 1 and 3 I think. So don’t take this as an educated last word on it---

Awesome improvements to the genre

1) Real tempo---Unlike the other dudes on a map I’ve played, Gears of War has serious tempo in it. Specifically, Warhammer Questish games are focused on chipping away at HP, grinding it down, long term considerations. I find it, actually, quite athematic. By contrast, Gears of War regenerates your health quickly. So what you’re really worried about is getting into an intense firefight and losing, not marginally how much damage it’s doing to you long term for when you’re at the end of the dungeon.
2) Non-marginal improvements---when you pick up something in the dungeon, it fucking matters. Getting additional grendes, boomshot (rocket launcher), torque bow. They’re like a dying man getting a drink of water. The same thing could even be said for ammo you pick up. Great moments. No +1 sword that’s a tiny bit better.
3) No counting squares---the min-maxing is severely reduced by this decision. It makes range and LOS a bit weird, but it’s worth it and speeds the game up, pulling a trivial decision out of the game.
4) Frequent key decisions---some of the things that people don’t like about the game (e.g. orders are health) make the game interesting turn to turn. As in, win/lose type decisions. So using ammo or not is a key decision. Picking up weapons or items is a meaningful decision. Which orders to use are a key decision. Whether to dodge or interrupt the monster’s turn is a key decision. How close to get to the enemy based on your orders is a key decision.
5) Faithful---if it matters to you, it’s extremely faithful and thematic to the GoW franchise, which most people don’t like.
6) Enemy toughness---the wound system in this game is genius. It dispenses with HP, and makes tough enemies tough without making them a bullet sponge. An incredibly elegant solution that has been needed for years in this genre.

Rough Stuff

1) Gamey strategic flow decisions---especially the decision about keeping locusts alive so that more don’t spawn. This is bullshit design. There should be a reward for slaughtering the enemy. I think this could be solved easily by putting in some “quiet day” type cards that activate the enemy if they exist but otherwise give you a turn of respite if you kill everybody. It needs some tweaks in the AI card system. The game should be about intermittent, intense encounters with a breath between rather than some gamey situation where you manipulate a constant spawn rate. Your incentives should ALWAYS be to kill.
2) Uninteresting theme---I like the theme and prefer this theme. But this system deserves to live in a widely loved theme, it is that good. If you don’t know the theme, everybody looks exactly the fucking same!
3) Range and LOS---the system is creaky. But I don’t think there is anything to be done about it, and the tradeoff is well worth it by taking out lots of other tedious decisionmaking.
4) More teamwork orders---there is some nice teamwork order stuff in the game and it could use more. Follow is cool, and the game could use more mechanisms like this and more order cards based around proximity and use of other players on your turn.
5) Poorly balanced for number of players---this doesn’t work right. It works great with 2, but it’s easy to see how fucked up it would be with 4. The more players, the more enemies. But enemies get to act every turn while each individual player only once every few turns. It isn’t balanced quite right, needs a ton of playtesting to get this right.
6) No campaign or persistence---obviously, for this game to take its rightful place as the new go to for Dudes in a Corridor, it needs a campaign system. How to balance that with some of the thrilling things it does because it doesn’t do this (e.g. picking up weapons in the middle of missions) is a challenge.

Anyway, this is a criminally underappreciated game. I think a lot of the problems in this game are easy fixes, especially the strange incentives. I think that's the biggest flaw in the game. Ideas from this game should be driving Dudes of Corridor now, IMHO. But they are not, because Corey K’s amazing ideas were put into a theme that they fit perfectly into, but that boardgamers aren’t into.
Last edit: 31 Jan 2015 13:31 by Gary Sax.
The following user(s) said Thank You: mads b., Green Lantern, cdennett, stoic, charlest, Gregarius

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
31 Jan 2015 14:56 #196608 by charlest
Those are all good comments/observations Gary. I do really like the cover system and think it's one of the best parts of the game so I don't mind the Range/LOS at all. The fact that LOS is abstract unless cover is involved cuts down on time but makes cover really matter. I think it's pretty ingenious actually.

We've won with 4 but it's certainly more difficult. You really have to preserve player's health and use your reactions/follows correctly. It's not nearly as bad in terms of scaling as Legendary: Encounters though.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Feb 2015 14:21 #196633 by Gary Sax
Something I forgot when I wrote that bit that is awesome about the game---it is not a game made with obvious expansions in mind. If you know the theme, they crammed EVERYTHING into this game that they could. It has all the weapons. All 4 of the core COGs. All the enemies through GoW 2.

It really sucks that they didn't release a big box expansion but the blow is softened by how full a release the game is.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Feb 2015 14:39 #196635 by mads b.
The only thing the game could really use is some shorter missions than the ones in the base game and the POD expansion. I would love for something that could easily be played in an hour or so with a couple of COGs.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Feb 2015 15:24 #196641 by Gary Sax
Agreed, by mission 2 you're already at a long mission.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Feb 2015 16:48 #196643 by Sevej
Gary Sax, I found your comment about tempo & "quiet day" to be quite interesting. One thing that stopped me from getting this back then was pacing control.

I don't like games in which enemies just keep coming, without different rate (sometimes they trickle in, other times they just flood the place), breaks, etc. It seems Gears is the same in this regard. But your comment about tempo makes me think about it.

Pandemic has excellent pacing with the Epidemic mechanic. That's why it still holds the pedestal for me.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Feb 2015 17:26 #196644 by Ancient_of_MuMu
I had my first bad experience with the game the other day, where everything bad above happened. It was a 4 player game for mission 3 and we called it after 2 hours when we finally hit the second of 3 areas. Basically very first turn the first player made a bad call put himself in a slightly vulnerable position, the dice betrayed him and he ended up bleeding out. We then were on the back foot, but managed to slowly work our way through all enemies, with multiple people ending up bleeding out and us just hanging on by our fingernails and progress to the next tile. We ended up with only one locust left in my turn, and I took him out. The AI system then decided that you can't have an empty board, we went through many AI cards that told us to draw another card due to the lack of locusts until we finally hit a card that spawned 6 wretches in the middle of us, and then the pain started again. Soon after we took out all but one locust, and then drew the same card again and had to deal with another 6 wretches.

If I had left that one locust alive we would have had a much cruisier game, and we all decided that you should never wipe out all wretches, as 1 can be ignored and does minimal damage but when 4-6 are on the board and they hunt in packs they become terrifying, so everything should be done to minimize their ability to spawn. It just feels wrong to have to game the system by not killing enemies.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
01 Feb 2015 19:38 #196647 by Gary Sax
Yeah, Sevej... there's a little bit of constant wave in the game because of the way the AI cards work. Nevertheless, there's still significant tempo, because when you open a new area you get into an intense brawl with the large numbers of enemies you place then. The thing that annoys me is that once you kill those monsters (in a pretty exciting bunch of turns), there is still a trickle of dudes spawning in unless you leave one or two enemy left hanging around.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
02 Feb 2015 22:50 - 02 Feb 2015 22:53 #196708 by Gary Sax
I just cracked the POD mission pack. You definitely need to get it if you like Gears. It looks to my eye like they made mission pack one when they realized that the game wasn't going to get a real boxed expansion and just packed some extra ideas they had waiting for a bigger box in there... so there are:

grenadiers
flame grenadiers
butchers
palace guards
feral berserker
General RAAM

...all in a little mission pack with two missions. My guess is that all those were supposed to be in a new big expansion with models for each of them, save for maybe the feral berserker which feels a little added on.

Too bad they didn't make a mission pack 2 that contained more missions with the enemies they introduced in 1.
Last edit: 02 Feb 2015 22:53 by Gary Sax.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
06 Feb 2015 22:56 #197039 by kookoobah
I got this game in a local math trade, and I was planning on buying the Mission Pack. Can anybody help me out? Thanks!

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Moderators: Gary Sax
Time to create page: 0.169 seconds