Plot: you are a bored super computer idling the nights away at a automated factory. for your own amusement you stage races against other super computers using the factory's robots. The theme has decent implementation. The boards are chaotic and dangerous like a factory...
Game Play: There are 5 moves per turn, which you must plan out ahead of time. You get 9 cards to do this with. The cards moves are things like turn right, move forward 3 or back up. Your robot has to negotiate obstacles to get to race goals, so planning your move correctly is the game.
Robots shoot at each other, and if you get damaged, you receive less cards to plan your move. Lose too many cards, and your 5th move gets locked.
Game end conditions can change from game to game, but generally its something like whoever tags three goal markers first.
Review: I do not like this game. It was released in 1994, so its 20 years old. 20 years ago, it might have been okay, back when board game choices consisted of Risk, Advanced Civilization and Car Wars; it has not aged well.
The game has way too much luck involved for the time investment it takes to play. BGG lists playing time as 120 minutes, and I find that incredibly optimistic for anything larger than a small play surface.
The skill of planning your turn isn't very hard to master, so really the game is who draws the best cards. Now there are quite a few games that I like that can be described in this manner. Most of them play in 45 minutes or less.
wow, 1994 was 20 years ago? fuck. I am old.
ReplyDeletewell to substantiate your point further, it was actually designed in 1985, it's the game Garfield was hawking to wizards when they said they were looking for a CCG. So he went back and created MtG.
I don't like this game either, but man, you have a lot of vitriol for it :) I would play it on the odd occasion.
Advanced Civilization :> THRACE FOR THE WIN, BITCHES!
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