Pandemic: Contagion and Pandemic: The Cure Reviews

Today, dear readers, you are in for a treat! Not one, but TWO reviews for the price of one! (Still free.) I'm going to take a look at two new games in the "Pandemic-verse," - Pandemic: Contagion and Pandemic: The Cure.

Pandemic has a special place in my gamer heart. It is the first modern board game I played (I had already tried Carcassonne and Catan at this point) that really captured my imagination and made me think, "Wow - we can do this with a board game?? What else is out there??"

Pandemic is the game that is responsible for me doing new things with old friends, meeting great new friends, having an owned games list over 200 (and a previously owned game list approaching 1000), and for writing these silly game reviews.

When I heard on the Dice Tower that a Pandemic dice game was in the works, I was definitely interested. I obviously love Pandemic, but I also really enjoy cooperative games and dice games in general. I was also excited when I heard about Pandemic: Contagion - the idea of playing as diseases sounded neat, and I wanted to see what Z-Man would do with that concept.

The first thing I should mention about Pandemic: Contagion is that it is a stand-alone competitive game. It has Pandemic branding, but aesthetics is pretty much where the similarities end. In fact, Contagion is not designed by Pandemic's designer, Matt Leacock. Contagion was designed by Carey Grayson.

As I mentioned, in Pandemic: Contagion, players are diseases, trying to infect and kill off as much of humanity as possible. Countries are represented by cards, which players will be placing their cubes onto - each cube represents that disease infecting 1,000,000 of that location's population.

On a turn, a player will have two actions available. Players can draw cards (Incubate), infect a location card, or mutate their disease. Cards are the currency of the game, and come in 6 suits - one matching each continent in the game. In order to infect a new city, a player must discard two cards matching the color of the city, but to spread an infection where a player already has her disease present only costs 1 matching card.


Mutating your disease means discarding cards in order to move up on 1 of 3 tracks. The first two tracks dictate how many cards a player draws and how many cubes she places each time she takes an Incubate or Infect action, respectively. The last track, the Resistance track, symbolizes how resistant a player's disease is to the effects of humanity's medical and epidemiology communities. Each round, a new event card will be revealed. If the effect is negative, being higher up on the resistance track means a disease will be less affected by the event.

Players will score points by having the most or second most disease cubes in a city when the total number of disease cubes meets or exceeds the total population of the city.

Play continues in this way until either the event deck runs out or when there are only two city cards left. All remaining cities are scored and the player with the most points wins!

Pandemic: Contagion is not a bad game. It is also, unfortunately, not a good game. I really like when games have upgrade tracks that each player can move up to individualize how they will play the game. I was hoping that this is where the interesting decisions in Contagion would be. Unfortunately, Pandemic: Contagion does not have anything interesting here. Not much changes from game to game, and although I haven't played the game over 10 times, I would feel pretty confident in saying players should always upgrade their Incubation ability, then their Infection rate, and then their Resistance level, if they feel like it. In all of the games of this I've played, the first few rounds consisted of everyone taking the same exact turn - Incubation action then grade Incubation track.

The game starts to get interesting once a few players decide to stop upgrading and get infecting the board. But even then, the game doesn't have much to offer. There are some interesting decisions to make when infecting, since the player who places the cube that triggers a scoring gets a one-time special action, but that's about it. Even the once a round global events deck is rather boring.

Pandemic: Contagion is a very simple card game with a neat theme. It is inoffensive enough, but I found myself bored while playing it. I can't recommend it. 5.5/10.

Jim would like to thank Z-Man Games for providing him a review copy of Pandemic: Contagion.

Pandemic: The Cure has a lot more in common with its big sister than Contagion. The Cure is cooperative, and it was also designed by Matt Leacock, the designer or the original Pandemic. In Pandemic: The Cure, players are a team of specialists, working together to cure 4 diseases ravaging humanity worldwide, before either the number of outbreaks or the number of infected become overwhelming.

The world map is represented by 6 tiles, arranged in a circle. Each tiles has a continent on it and is assigned a number from 1-6. Players can move their pawns to adjacent tiles by using a boat die result, or to any tile by using an airplane result.

Much like the original, players will all win if they can cure all 4 diseases. In The Cure, they do this by collecting samples of the disease, and finding a cure by rolling the samples and getting a result of at least a 13 or higher. 

Disease cubes in The Cure are actually 6 sided dice. At the end of each player's turn, a number of cubes are drawn from a bag and rolled. These disease cubes are placed onto the continent tile that has the number matching each cube's die result. Any cross symbols are moved to the CDC tile as resources the players can use whenever they wish.

On a player's turn, she will roll all of her available dice. Any Biohazard results must be kept and will advance the Infection Rate. The player can take actions according to her die results, or she may reroll her dice. In fact, she may continue rerolling as long as she has not used all of her available dice.

Aside from the Biohazard symbol, the player dice also have the basic actions of Fly (move anywhere), Sail (move to an adjacent location), Treat (take a disease cube from your location and place it into the Treatment Center), and Collect Sample (take a disease cube from the Treatment Center and put it onto your role card, with the Collect Sample die on top).

Each player's dice will also have special symbols on them, depending on their role. Some roles are better at moving, some are better at treating and curing, while others have special faces that are unique to their role.

At the end of any turn which a player has enough samples, they can attempt to find a cure for a disease. To do this, they roll all the disease cubes they have collected, and if the result is a 13 or higher, a cure for that disease has been found! If players find a cure for all four diseases, they win! If either the Infection Rate or the Outbreaks markers reach the end of their tracks, or if there are no disease cubes left in the bag and more need to be drawn, the game ends and the players all lose.

I think the biggest gripe I have with Pandemic: The Cure is that depending on how the dice get rolled, the players could either have a cakewalk or have their butts handed to them. This is not too much of a con, since this was also true for the original Pandemic - I've certainly experienced both the "cakewalk" and "butt-handed-to-me" varieties of that game as well. 

One of my favorite parts of this game is (unsurprisingly) the dice. First, the disease dice are not simple D6 dice with a cross on one side. They are weighted very differently - the red dice, for instance, do not have 2, 3, or 5 sides. This means that certain diseases will mostly affect certain continents, which makes outbreaks more common. Another thing I like about the disease dice is that because they all have a cross side, each time a player draws disease dice from the bag, there's always hope that at least a couple of them will come up as crosses, which can be spent by the players during the game to pay for communal event cards (which all have positive effects).

Thirdly, I really like the player dice. It is really neat that the dice for each role have custom sides, but I also really like the press your luck mechanism of players being able to roll as much as they wish, but all bad results must be kept. It really adds a lot of excitement to each turn and to each roll.

While Pandemic: The Cure is a bit shorter than the original, I would say that it retains much of the feel of the "full game." The Cure even simulates the collection of cards in Pandemic by forcing players to temporarily give up dice while they are looking for a cure. 

I really like Pandemic: The Cure, and would be hard pressed if asked which game I would rather keep, original Pandemic or The Cure. Fortunately, I don't have to make such a ridiculous decision. =) I'd rate Pandemic: The Cure 8.5/10.

Valley of the Kings

Guys, just because its Egyptian themed doesn't mean triangles become pyramids. Its a triangle.

Valley of the Kings is a small box game from AEG's Pocket line of games that includes Cheaty Mages and Sail to India. It is a deck building game set in ancient Egypt. A mechanism and theme that the board game hobby has certainly seen a lot of. Does Valley of the Kings deserve your attention anyway?

One of the starting cards - unlike "copper" it remains useful until the end of the game.

Valley of the Kings does a lot of things that we're seen in previous deck builders. Players buy cards from a pool of available cards, and put them into a discard pile, which will be shuffled into their personal deck later in the game. The available cards in Valley of the Kings are set up in a triangle, and are cycled in a way that is reminiscent of Ascension, but here only half of the cards that are face up are available for purchase, which adds a bit to that formula.

The game also adds two bigger innovations to deck building. First, each card can be used to execute 1 of 3 actions.
     1. The card can be played for money in order to buy cards in the center.
     2. The card can be played for its action.
     3. The card can be buried (permanently removed from their deck) in a player's tomb, for its victory point value.

In Valley of the Kings, any cards left in a player's deck are worthless at the end of the game. Only those cards which have been purged from each player's deck and placed into their tombs are counted as points. This is the essence of what Valley of the Kings brings to the genre - and the main reason the game is so much fun.

As one might expect, cards which have strong abilities are also worth a lot of points. So just like in Dominion - where there is a point where players have to decide to stop buying action cards and start buying point cards - players in Valley of the Kings have to choose how long they want to keep playing that valuable action card, and when they want to bury it in their tomb to ensure it gets counted as points at game end.

One of my favorite things about any deck building game is trying to thin out my deck to make it as efficient as possible. Valley of the Kings really lets me play around with this idea because players are allowed to get rid of any card in their hand once per turn. I like this both because it gives me a lot of control over my deck, and also because there isn't a safety net. I think it would be possible in this game to buy the wrong cards, thin too much, and simply be out of the game. I'm not saying this is likely, or that this game is especially punishing, but I like being treated like I know what I'm doing by a game and its designer.

Valley of the Kings also plays with deck composition by having a fair number of cards in the deck whose actions involved getting cards out of one's own deck, and putting them into the deck of another player. This action would be interesting in any deck building game - but is even more interesting here, as even the weakest/least exciting cards in the game (your starting deck) are worth victory points. So yes, by using one of these cards and then burying another card a player could potentially thin 2 cards from her deck in a single turn, but will the other player bury the card I just sent? Is making my deck a few cards stronger worth the victory point cost? In a two-player game, even a card that is just worth a single victory point could result in a 2 point swing if the shunned card ends up in the other player's tomb.

Deck building is one of my favorite mechanisms in games. Despite this, there aren't many deck building games that I have fallen in love with. Ascension, Trains, and Star Realms are some of my favorites - but with so many mediocre deck builders out there, its hard to keep playing all of them and being disappointed over and over again. That is part of why I think Valley of the Kings has been such a hit for me. The game keeps enough about the genre the same, while putting its own interesting twists on the formula.

I would definitely recommend Valley of the Kings to fans of deck building, and even to those who might feel like deck building doesn't have anything new or fun to explore. I'd rate it a solid 8.0.

"Famous Games" Review #1 - Famous Fastballs

[This review assumes the reader understands the basic rules of baseball.]

Famous Games Co. has a series of "famous" sports games, including baseball, tennis, car racing, football, golf, and yacht racing. I will review each of these games, but first up - baseball!

I love baseball. I didn't really play as a kid, due to a traumatizing injury sustained early during my tee-ball career, but since then I have come to love the sport. I think my favorite part of the game is the battle that takes place between the pitcher and the opposing hitter. There is so much drama in each pitch. So much guessing, and bluffing, and re-guessing. Baseball really is a game of inches, and that made very clear every time a batter steps up to the plate.



Famous Fastballs: The World's Smallest Baseball Game certainly lives up to its name. The game includes 11 cards, and requires (not included) less than a dozen counters. Players set up by laying most of the cards up on the table between them, and placing counters where indicated. These cards track everything from the score, to the number of outs, to the current inning.



Famous Fastballs breaks a baseball game down into outs - no individual pitches or strikes - a batter either gets a hit or an out. To resolve each at bat, both players (as when playing Rock, Paper, Scissors), count simultaneously to 3, and throw either a fist or an open palm. If the players threw different things, the pitcher gets an out. If both players threw an open palm, the batter is awarded a walk. And if both players throw a fist, the batter get contact and puts the ball into play. What happens after that requires a second stage of resolution.


Both players simultaneously count to 3 (just like above) and throw either a fist, 1 finger, 2 fingers, or 3 fingers (0, 1, 2, or 3). Players add the sum of the numbers thrown, and consult the Hit card for the result of the play.

That is pretty much the game! Players continue through the game until they have played 9 innings, and whoever has scored the most runs after those 9 innings is the winner!

As you can see, gameplay is dead simple - but the experience of playing the game is so much more than the sum of its parts. The guessing and bluffing that happens during each out and each ball put in play is so awesome - especially when two baseball fans are playing against each other. The dynamic that is created by these very simple tables on cards is truly amazing. I especially love the Hit table. The pitcher can try to go for an out, by throwing something low, like a 0 or a 1 - but that allows the batter to throw a 2 or a 3 to get at least a base hit. So should the pitcher always throw a 0, hoping the batter will get himself out with a 1 or a 2? But then the batter could throw a 3, since the likelihood of the pitcher going for a triple play is probably pretty low...right?

You can almost smell the beer and popcorn.

Probably my favorite part of Famous Fastballs is that all of this happens in "real time." Since the actual mechanics of either throwing out a fist or an open palm, or a 0, 1, 2, or 3 is so simple, half innings could take less than 10 seconds (and sometimes do). These supremely simple (yet deviously difficult) decisions, when made under this intense time pressure makes for some really awesome, often laugh-out-loud moments.

I haven't played too many board games based on baseball, but Famous Fastballs is my favorite, by far. It is quick to play, easy to learn, and it really feels like baseball. I have never played a game of this without both players bursting into laughter, whether prompted by sheer frustration after the pitcher threw a FIFTH straight ball, or after one of the players shouting waay too loudly, "I KNEW you were going to do that!!!" For its weight, its cost, and how often I would be willing to play it, I would rate Famous Fastballs an 8.5/10. I think this is a must have game for baseball fans.

Jim would like to thank Famous Games Co for sending him a review copy of Famous Fastballs.

Cheaty Mages Review

Cheaty Mages is a recent card game release from AEG and that Seiji Kanai guy. You might recognize that name from another recent Japanese import of his that had a modicum of success, Love Letter. 

Cheaty Mages is a fairly simple almost area control type card game with some wagering, hand management, and "take that" thrown in. The premise of the game is that the players are all mages, watching an arena battle and betting on the outcome. And, as referenced by the title of the game, the players are not just spectators, but use their magic to take an active role in the battle. 

During each round of the game, 5 fighter cards are dealt to the table to participate in the current battle. The top judge card is also drawn - this is the judge who will impose rules on the current round.

The first thing a player does, is choose 1, 2, or 3 bet cards from her hand to play face down in front her. If a player bets on 1 fighter, and it wins, the player will receive double the prize money printed on the fighter card. If a player bets on 2 fighters, she gets the printed amount, and betting on 3 fighters will net the player half the printed value on the fighter. After 3 rounds, whoever has the most money is the Cheatiest Mage!

Enchant Cards                      Direct Cards                   Support Cards

During a turn, players cast spells on the fighters. There are 3 types of cards - Enchant (face down spells), Direct (face up spells), and Support (event cards that will usually affect the other mages instead of the fighters). 

In turn order, players will either play one card, discard a card to look at all the face down cards that are affecting a fighter, or pass. Once a player has passed, she is out for the remainder of the round, which will end once all players have passed. 

At the end of the round, all cards are flipped face up, the winner of the battle is determined, and any successful bets are paid out to those mages. To begin the second and third rounds, players are dealt (in a 3-4 player game) 4 new cards from the deck, but not more than the hand limit of 8.

That's basically the game! The judge for a round can affect a lot, as each spell card comes with a mana value, and if a judge's mana limit is exceeded on any one fighter, the judge will usually either disqualify that fighter or discard all spells played on him. The judge for a round may also not allow certain card types to be played at all during a round.

Cheaty Mages is loads of fun. If you've ever played Reiner Knizia's Colossal Arena, the gameplay should sound pretty familiar to you - and it is very reminiscent of the good doctor's now 15 year old game. But Cheaty Mages adds a lot to that game.

First, a few things that I didn't love about the game. I like the idea of the judges, but I don't like when they disallow certain card types. If a player has a hand full of Direct cards, and the judge that gets flipped for the round doesn't allow any Direct cards to be played, how is that fun? I also wish there were more fighters in the deck. There are 10, and only 5 are needed for each round, but I think it would be more fun to have a bigger variety. 

One of my favorite things about Cheaty Mages is the hand management aspect. Knowing you are going to get 4 cards to start the next round, give a huge incentive to only play 4, so that you can have your hand completely replenished for rounds 2 and 3. But when it comes down to your turn, and you have 4 cards left, and no one else has passed yet, what do you do? This goes to another point I like about the game - Cheaty Mages is chaotic, but there is definitely some strategic play to be found here. A good deal of it comes from seeing the odds, and the fighters, and how certain card combinations will play out, but most of the strategy in the game comes from playing the other players. Working out temporary alliances with the other players - that may be based on either lies or incorrect assumptions about shared bets - is where a lot of the fun comes from in this game. 

I also love the hidden betting mechanism. I like hidden roles in general, but I really like that in this game, players not only have hidden agendas, but they also get to choose those agendas, AND have to decide how much risk they are willing to take, in terms of betting on 1, 2, or 3 fighters.

Something I generally despise in games is "take that." But another thing I like about Cheaty Mages' hidden roles is that the "take that" aspect of the game is somewhat blunted in the game, because any attacks are not against any player in particular, but against a fighter...that your opponents are hopefully supporting.

I would rate Cheaty Mages 8.5/10. It is a short, simple game, with a lot of subtlety and delicious backstabbery. During my first game of Cheaty Mages with a group of close friends, and after playing a 10 mana card on a fighter (thus disqualifying him from the round), my best friend stood up from the table and shouted, "I friggin hate you!" That moment was so laugh-out-loud funny, and the whole game was just so much fun, I knew immediately that this was my kind of game. 

Jim would like to thank AEG for providing him a review copy of Cheaty Mages.

Omen: A Reign of War Review

So, after letting it sit in my closet much longer than intended, I finally got in some plays for Omen: A Reign of War. (BoardGameGeek link - it's apparently not on Amazon.)

In Omen, the players are in the midst of a mythological war that seems to be set in ancient Greece.  They are struggling to accomplish feats and overtake a few war-torn cities by using Soldiers, Oracles, and Beasts (such as Satyrs, a Phoenix, and Minotaurs).  Each turn consists of a few different steps - first is the wealth step in which you are allowed to take a combination of three cards or coins.  If you use all three of these choices to take the same thing (three cards or three coins), then you get a bonus item of the type you selected.  Next, you play hoards of cards from your hand into the three different cities.  When playing soldiers, they have effects that occur immediately, with beasts you either get to use their ability or play them for strength, and with oracles, they have abilities that occur every round.  After you are satisfied with what you have played (generally because you ran out of coins), then all of your oracle abilities occur.  Next, you check to see if you have accomplished any of the six feats (such as having a soldier in each city).  Finally, it's time for action.  You check to see if any of the cities are "war torn."  A city is war torn if your opponent has three units in it, or there are a total of five units (or more) in the city.  If this occurs, both players compare strength in the city, and whoever has the highest strength is the winner  - thus getting to claim the top card from the city (each city has four cards).  Whoever wins must remove all but one of his units, and the loser can keep two of his.  (Note: during all parts of the game, including this one, beasts count as two units, and so the winner cannot keep a beast.)  The last step of the turn is an optional offering - the active player has the option to discard a card from his hand in order to gain extra cards or coins (not a combination) equal to the card's offering value.  Play alternates in this fashion until one player has accomplished five of his six feats, or until two of the cities have been scored four times.  At that point, whoever has the most points (from scoring cities and feats) is the winner.

A war torn city

Honestly, I have a lot of feelings about Omen; this review might be a bit tricky as I attempt to translate those feelings (that have been swirling in my head for a few days) into more eloquent thoughts about the game.  Either way, let's start like normal - with the pros.  The first pro for Omen is that I like the war torn rules.  Specifically, I like that they're setup to allow your opponent to respond, yet allow you to intentionally overload a city enough that it forces it to score immediately.  This is especially true early in the game, before either player has many troops on the table.  During those turns, in order to force a city to score, you may have to place five units in the city by yourself (which happens to also be a feat, so it's not necessarily a bad thing to do).  Later in the game, though, there are more turns when you will end your turn with three units in a city; either because that's all that you can afford, or because you don't think that your opponent will be able to take the city from you before the end of his turn.

The next pro that I have for Omen: A Reign of War is that I like the different unit types. I like that each type has a different way of being used in the game, and that each of these different types can be incredibly effective if used correctly - oracles can give you long running bonuses, soldiers can give you a one-two punch of gaining strength and an effect, and beasts can powerfully swing a battle for a city (or do some other ridiculous ability).  This diversity of types is a nice touch, and it is also nice that there are different Feats that can reward you for each of the different types.  (There is a feat for having one soldier in each city, another for having one beast in each city, and a third for having one oracle in each city.)  Granted, the downside of the feats focusing on having several units of the same type is that this adds a luck of the draw element to being able to accomplish some of the feats - which can be frustrating, since feats are one of your only two ways of scoring points.

The final pro that I will mention about Omen are the amazing combos that are possible.  It is really interesting to watch how some of the different cards combine together to make for incredibly powerful turns.  You may be able to play a soldier that allows you to draw two cards and force your opponent to discard two cards, then you can play another soldier that allows you to move the first soldier - thus triggering his effect a second time.  (And, by doing so, accomplishing a feat of forcing your opponent to discard three or more cards in a turn.)  If you add in another card that allows you to draw a card and steal money from your opponent, suddenly you've been able to cripple your opponent in both cards and money, draw five cards (yet another of the six feats), and get a lot of strength on the battlefield - all with three cards!  (Plus, you've refilled your hand, which helps set you up for the next turn.)  Again - watching some of these combos can be a lot of fun.

Beasts can have amazing abilities

And that leads us into the cons.  I mentioned "watching" some of these combos.  That is because Omen can be an incredibly streaky game.  Even in the combo that I just mentioned, it not only does powerful things to help you, it also severely cripples your opponent.  Because of that, there will be times when one player feels somewhat helpless.  You won't be able to do anything, your turns will be useless, and you're just waiting for your opponent to score and remove troops.  This can grow even worse if your opponent has a lot of oracles in play, as they have effects that occur every round!  So, if you are struggling to get anything out on the table, and your opponent has oracles that are forcing you to discard a card, and giving them a coin and a card every turn, it is very hard to feel relevant in the game.  You will wind up spending several turns in a row doing nothing but wealth actions and offerings, hoping to get something together.  However, once you finally do get some more meaningful turns, you might suddenly be able to turn the tables and have some insane combinations of your own - and hopefully your opponent won't be outscoring you so badly by that point that your turns are irrelevant.

My next con for Omen is also about combos.  Too often, executing powerful combos feels like a result of luck more than a result of planning.  Why?  Because the best combos generally come from getting to draw cards mid turn.  Let's take the scenario that I gave in my final pro.  On most turns, you will start with only a few cards.  So, first, you play the soldier that allows you to draw two cards and force your opponent to discard two cards.  This card is strong, all on its own.  Now, say that you draw the soldier that allows you to move another soldier - boom, you're able to trigger your original soldier again.  And thus you draw two more cards.  What do you get next?  A card that allows you to get more coins (or steal them from your opponent)?  Now, you can play that, which then gives you enough resources to play yet another card.  But what part of that was planned at the beginning of the turn?  Playing the original soldier.  More often than not, I felt like the combos, though powerful, were very reactionary.  I'm not going to say that everyone agrees with this opinion - but it was definitely a sentiment that I had after playing.

The last con that I will mention has to do with countering your opponent.  In this game, every strategy seems to have cards that help you counter them.  This is a good trait.  So, you might be wondering, why is it listed in the section for cons?  Because whether you actually get the cards you need for countering them will all be based on the luck of the draw.  Take oracles as an example.  Oracles help you in some small way every turn - they give bonuses like drawing a card, gaining a coin, or stealing a coin from your opponent.  Fortunately, there are several different soldiers that can discard oracles.  But, if you don't ever successfully draw these cards (or you are forced to discard them before you can play them), then you won't ever be able to get rid of their oracles, because they won't be forced to discard them by anything that they do, including scoring a city.  So, you may draw the exact same cards two games in a row, but if you draw them when you need them one game and draw them when they aren't relevant the next, then you will have drastically different amounts of success.

Omen is very text heavy

The final thing that I will mention is something that you should be aware of, but not necessarily a "con".  This game is very text heavy.  I mentioned this same fact about Smash Up (though, because of additional factors, I believe I called it a con in that review).  However, I would say that Omen is even more text intensive than Smash Up.  Every card has a significant amount of text.  There are also a lot of cards, and not terribly many copies of each.  This means that you will be seeing new cards throughout most of the game.  Ok, that's not so bad.  Now, you have to factor in that several cards allow you to "search through the discard pile" or "search through the draw pile."  Uh oh.  Whereas in other games that do this you are either familiar with your cards (because it is a game where you build your deck before (or while) playing), or the number of cards is somewhat small (each person has a 50-60 card deck for example).  Not so in Omen - if you are searching through the entire draw stack, then you might have around 200 cards to look through, each with a large block of text on it.  And, if this is your first time to play, you have no idea what most of them do - which leaves you the options of either pausing the entire game for about half an hour while you read through all of them, or making a selection that isn't ideal, simply to keep the game going.  This is the balance of having a text intensive game - so it is definitely something that you should be aware of when considering if this is a game for you.

Overall, I give Omen: A Reign of War a 7.0/10.  I really thought that I was going to love this game.  In fact, when I traded for it, I was incredibly excited about getting to try it out.  But, for whatever reason, it fell somewhat flat for me.  Hopefully I've been able to solidify my thoughts well enough to help you understand if this one would be a good choice for you, or if you think it's one that you should pass on.

If you like games like Omen, you should also check out Summoner Wars, Glory to Rome, and Eminent Domain.

Monopoly Deal Review

A light little filler game that I tried recently was Monopoly Deal.

Don't let the name fool you - Monopoly Deal is about as much like normal Monopoly as having a tooth extracted (without even having anesthetic) is "major surgery". Here's how it works - each player starts the game with some cards. Each turn, you draw two cards, play up to three cards, and then discard to seven cards in your hand (rarely an issue). The object of the game is to get three complete property sets. Cards come in three main varieties: Money (ranging from $1 Million to $10 Million), Actions (that kick your friends in the teeth and steal from them while they're down), and Properties (that you then have stolen from you while you're on the ground after being kicked). The properties will be the old staples that you're used to, but there are also Wild properties that help you to more easily complete sets. Money is simply money - it's used to pay for things (and serves as a buffer before you have to pay in property). Actions range from forcing players to give you $2 Million as a birthday gift to stealing a complete property set, charging rent to drawing extra cards. Oh, and every action card has a monetary value and can be played as "Money" instead of as an action.  Once someone gets their three complete property sets, they are the winner.

The first thing that I like about Monopoly Deal is that it is a fast paced game. Now, don't get me wrong - I actually enjoy the original game of Monopoly. However, it's not for everyone, and I understand that. Monopoly Deal can be played in a fraction of the time of normal Monopoly. Theoretically, the entire game can be over in two rounds! (If you are able to complete the three 2-property color sets (Mediterranean/Baltic, Boardwalk/Park Place, Electric Company/Water Works.) However, fortunately it's not normally that fast. Either way, turns go very quickly, so there does not feel like very much down time in the game.

Not quite as drooled over as before.

The next thing that I like about the game is that you're never completely out of contention. Yes, if you have no property in front of you, the game can be much more challenging, but there are combinations of cards that can immediately get you right back into contention. If, for example, you had no properties and one of your opponent's had Boardwalk & Park Place, you could use "Deal Breaker" to steal their set, and then play "Double the Rent" with a Dark Blue "Rent" card to go from having nothing to having all of your opponents pay you $16 Million dollars, all on one turn! (Assuming that your opponent that you steal the property set from does not have a "Just Say No" card.) Think about normal Monopoly - when you're losing heavily, what are the chances of you winning? Approximately 0.0003%? That's not true with Monopoly Deal.

Third, I like that Monopoly Deal is a friendly back-stabby game. What I mean is that, yes, you are constantly stabbing the other players in the back. However, they probably won't grow too irritated because they are about to do the same thing. And, the backstabbing happens early enough and often enough in the game that it doesn't feel like you've worked towards something all game and then someone swooped in at the last second to mess up your whole plan. You get stabbed the whole time you try to execute your plan, and if your planning doesn't involve stealing things from your opponents, then it's destined for failure. Let me put it this way - you'll spend as much time looking at what your opponent's have in play (your "options") as you will what's in your hand.

Finally, Monopoly Deal is able to open doors with people who don't normally play many games. Ever had this conversation, "I like board games." "Oh, you mean like Monopoly and Scrabble?" (Mine normally is "I write about board games." "Oh, you mean like Monopoly and Scrabble?" Sometimes they mix in Risk.) You can now answer, "Sure. You should try Monopoly Deal with us. You might like it." Monopoly Deal is fun - they probably will enjoy it. And then, *BAM*, spring Dominion on them the next day!! Or something like that...

Let's make a deal...

Anyway, it's not all roses for Monopoly Deal. One thing that I'm not a huge fan of is how much luck is involved in the game. This luck is almost exclusively in what cards you draw. I've played at least one game of it where I never drew an action card! Not one!! What does this mean? It means that my cards are constantly being stolen by other players and my only response will be to glare at them - no chance to take anything back. Also, not all properties are equal - you have the same odds of drawing Boardwalk as you do Mediterranean. Or worse, Oriental (I like Oriental in normal Monopoly, but in Monopoly Deal, it requires two other cards to complete the set, and still doesn't get much rent). Also, you may draw $1 Million "Money" cards to play, or you might draw $5 or $10 Million. Obviously, the person who draws better cards will have a major advantage.

The second thing that I think I will list as a con is that I'm not a huge fan of how Rent works. Especially with houses and hotels. To play a house or hotel, you have to have a complete property set - and then it simply increases the rent that can be charged. But, to charge rent, you have to draw the appropriate "Rent" card (each basic Rent card allows you to pick between two color sets and charge all other players Rent. There is also one or two "wild" Rent cards that allow you to charge one player Rent in any color.) Rent seems to require too much setup for too little payoff - especially with the crummier color sets. If I play "It's My Birthday!" then every other player owes me $2 Million. However, if I play Oriental Avenue and then charge Rent on it, I believe each other player owes me $1 Million - for a two card setup! It makes you wonder what's the point in them even including the Rent cards for some of these colors.  Rent just feels a bit too castrated in this game.

The final thing that I will mention is that the instructions are not especially clear. Yes, the game is pretty simple, but when the instructions say something like "just start playing, and it'll make sense" (paraphrased), that's not really a good sign. I still don't know what happens in certain situations in the game - like if I have a house on a property set, and I have to break the set - what happens to the house? Or, if I have a wild property that is worth "no monetary value" and someone charges me more than I can pay, do I have to give them that card? That's like me being so broke that I pay someone all that I own and then give them the lint from my pocket or used candy wrappers and pretend that it increases the value.

Overall, I give Monopoly Deal a 8.0/10. It's a fun, light-weight filler game. And, you can probably pick it up for around $6 at most any big-box store. I would recommend you check it out.

If Monopoly Deal sounds fun, you might also check out Bang!, Hecho, and Jab: Real Time Boxing.

Saboteur Review

 

A game that I recently picked up because it supports 3-10 players is Saboteur.  This is a game that I felt like writing about, but I only have a little bit to say - I really need to figure out when I call a review a "Mini" review and when I don't.  Maybe I should call this a "Semi-Mini" review?

Choose your identity

Saboteur is a hidden identity game (like Bang! and The Resistance).  In it, some players take on the roles of Dwarven miners - their goal is to dig a tunnel to reach the gold.  The other players are Saboteurs - they are attempting to prevent their fellow Dwarves from reaching their goal.  To setup the game, there are three potential goal cards - one with gold, two with coal.  These are placed face down with a card's width between them, and a start card is lined up with the middle goal - but with seven card's height between them.  On each turn, you can either play a path card, an action card (a misfortune, an anti-misfortune, a map, or a cave in), or you can simply discard a card.  After you do one of these things, you draw a new card.  Play continues going around until either the miners have created a path to the gold (at which point they all get victory point cards with the person completing the path getting the most - and telling his buddies that it was like that when he found it!), or the Saboteurs have prevented them from being able to do so (at which point they get victory points).  Shuffle, re-deal, repeat.  You play the game over a series of rounds (I believe three rounds is standard), and whoever has the most points at the end wins. 

The first, and most obvious, pro for Saboteur is the reason I bought the game - it can support 3-10 players.  And, though I haven't played it with all of the different numbers, I think that it would play fairly similarly with any number of these players.  Yes, you will have less control and more downtime with more players, but since you are also attempting to figure out who the Saboteurs are (and convince the other players that you aren't one!) I think that you will still be equally engaged throughout even the bigger games.

My biggest con for Saboteur is that your "secret" identity really isn't very secret - at least not for long.    Either you are actively helping the other team, or there is a good chance that they will figure you out.  There are some exceptions for this - like if you actually don't have any good cards you can play, so you start discarding.  Overall, though, it seems like if will be figured out pretty quickly.  This might not be the case as much in a really large game (one person might be able to evade your notice until late in the game), but in order to do that, they would probably be doing something helpful - which hinders their team's goal.

Action cards

The next con that I have is that it seems to be too easy for the miners to win.  This might be me being incredible naive because I haven't played enough, but from the games that I have seen, the dwarves normally win.  And, these games were played with seven players.  Yet, if you play with eight or nine, you still have the same number of Saboteur cards, but you increase the number of miners!  This dilutes the number of Saboteurs, thus making it easier for the miners.  Another factor in this would obviously be the paranoia level of the players - if everyone starts off by assuming that all of the other players are evil, thus throwing misfortune cards on good players, then the "team effort" is doomed for failure.  However, if the (good) players starts off the game assuming that most everyone will either be helpful or at least pretend to be for a few rounds, then you can quickly build a path to the goals (and make the Saboteurs desperate, thus forcing them to reveal themselves). 

Overall, I give Saboteur a 6.5/10.  Everything about it (except for maybe the secrecy of your "secret" identity) works, but nothing about it really pulls me in and makes me want to play again.  If I want to deceive my fellow players, I'd rather play Battlestar Galactica, The Resistance, or Shadows Over Camelot.

Morrigan Review

One of current Kickstarter games that I was asked to review is Morrigan.

In Morrigan, the object of the game is to score 15 points (to prove yourself worthy of saving the princess), and then fight a final adversary (mega-evil wizard who has kidnapped the princess; I like to call him Bowser, though his actual name is Maletar).  There are three different ways of earning victory points - defeating enemies, owning territories, and overcoming trials.  Each turn is fairly straightforward - draw two cards, do a bunch of actions (or none if you don't want to), reinforce territories and undefeated adversaries, and then discard down to five cards.  When playing actions, there are a few things you can do.  You can play a territory - in which case, you suddenly become the owner of it and have more victory points (but you will want to reinforce it so that other people don't take it).  You can play a trial - at which point everyone goes around and bids a single card (face down) or passes.  All reveal at the same time, and whoever has the highest action card gets credit for overcoming the trial.  You can also play adversary cards.  When playing an adversary, each player has the opportunity to reinforce the adversary by one card (it can be an action card or a "bluff", which is anything else).  Finally, you have the opportunity to fight for a territory that another player has, or to fight an adversary that has not yet been defeated.  When fighting, you show all of the action cards you want to spend, reveal all of the cards reinforcing your target, and if you played a higher total number than the target's defense value, you win.  Once someone has 15 victory points at the start of their turn, they fight Bowser.  The turn is slightly different, as they draw two cards plus one for each other player in the game.  Then, they play all of their action cards, and each opponent has the opportunity to reinforce Bowser by one card (he has a starting defense of five).  If you defeat Bowser, you win!  Otherwise, you lose some victory points and the game keeps going.

My favorite element of Morrigan is definitely trying to balance how to spend your action cards.  This becomes especially important when playing with five players.  Since you only get to draw two cards per turn (and they might not even be action cards), you simply don't have enough cards to participate in everything.  (I cannot emphasize that enough - you can't play on everything.  You will quickly run out of cards.  This aspect of the game also leads to parts of the game where everyone is playing a lot of cards followed by turns where people are often just drawing and passing.)  So, you have to decide when you should use your cards in order to help yourself, and when you should use them to slow down other players.  It's also a good idea to make sure that you keep at least one useful action card in your hand to bid, in case someone plays a valuable trial card.  But, if your action card is less than a five, you have to decide if you're willing to play the action card and risk losing it without gaining any points - which is the absolute worst use of an action card (but gaining a trial for a single action card is the best use of one, if you can win it).

Adversary worth 4 victory points

The next element of Morrigan that I liked is that you determine if you're going to reinforce an adversary in order.  This element adds in a little meta-game of trying to force other people to do the reinforcement for you.  If a Dragon is played (adversary that is worth five), then everyone will definitely want to reinforce it - after all, you don't want the person who played it to be able to take it easily.  However, you also don't want to use your cards to reinforce it - you want to use them for things that help you.  So, as the first player, you can try to pass and hope that it forces the other players to reinforce it; but this could also backfire, because they might not have any action cards.  Or, they might choose not to reinforce it because they're annoyed that you didn't help them.  Either way, the fact that you reinforce in order definitely adds an interesting element of player interaction.

Now, there are a couple of aspects of Morrigan that I'm still undecided on.  First is how territories work.  Territories are the only victory points in the game that can change players (if one player attacks the territory and takes it from another player).  Because of this, players tend to be very reluctant to play territories - especially late in the game.  If you play a territory early in the game, then it might be left alone long enough to reinforce it several times (you can only play one reinforcement card per territory per turn).  However, if you play a territory worth three when people are close to 15 victory points, there's a good chance that it's going to be attacked.  But, then the attacker also won't be able to reinforce it with more than one card after they have taken it.  I think it's neat that each type of victory point card is taken differently, and the game is definitely designed for territories to be taken back and forth, but I'm not sure how much I like them, simply because many people will be reluctant to play them.  I think that your game experience will be quite different depending on how people play these cards.  (Specifically, if a player places a five point territory in play in one of the first couple of turns, I'd imagine that people will fight over it much more than if nobody plays territories for the first half of the game.)

The next aspect of Morrigan that I'm undecided on is related to a strategy that we developed in the last game that I played.  Here's the premise of it - one point action cards are essentially worthless.  However, you are legally allowed to attack with any number of action points.  And so, we would often attack an opponent's territory or an adversary with a one action point card - purposely losing to see what cards were used as reinforcement.  Then, we would attack again with the needed amount of action points (or choose not to attack if we couldn't win).  This prevents you from having to overspend you action points, at the cost of a fairly useless card.  Whereas I think that this is a sound strategy, I think that it ruins most of the bluffing in the game.  You can still attempt to bluff on a trial (though that is very risky to start with), but now it's not especially helpful to bluff on an adversary or territory.  After all, if something is reinforced multiple times, the attacker will want to see what all the values are anyway; and so, they would have spent their one action point card to reveal them either way.

Special cards are also very good.

My main con for Morrigan (which is prevalent in many card games) is that the luck of the draw plays a very significant factor in the game.  Some cards are simply better than others.  A five point action card is far better than a one point action card.  In every situation.  A five point trial card is worth more than a one point trial card.  So, drawing these better cards gives you much more power over the game.  Being the person to draw a five point trial gives you the control over when that trial gets played - such as when you have a five point action card ready (or, even better, the special card that allows you to double the action card you play for a trial).  But, really, the more high action cards you draw in the game, the better your chances of winning.  Yes, you can still play very poorly and lose, but the winner should be the person that draws better action cards.

Overall, I give Morrigan a 7.0/10.  The game works well, and I think that it "deserves to be made."  (A term I only use in reference to Kickstarter games that haven't been published yet, though, to be fair, this one has already been published in France.)  However, there's nothing in the game that really invokes strong feelings in me one way or another.  I definitely do not hate this game, but I also don't love it.  I would play it more if people asked me to, but it probably won't be one of the first ones that I grab off my shelf to play.

If you're looking for card games to play, you might also check out Bang!, Famiglia, and Revolver.

I would like to thank Editions Dagda for providing me with a review copy of Morrigan.  And, as a reminder, you can check out their project on Kickstarter here.

Pax Review

A very interesting game that I recently was taught by one of my newer gaming friends was Pax (that link is to the publisher's site - it's not on Amazon).

In Pax, you are rebelling against Rome.  Well, at least most of you are.  To successfully rebel against Rome, you (as a collective group of players) must defeat Rome in 4 of the 7 categories.  Each turn, you will draw three cards, but you will see them one at a time.  One card goes in your hand, one goes on the bottom of the deck, and one goes under one of the "legion" cards.  Next, you may buy a group of "legion" cards by paying the cost of all of the cards in the pile.  Third, you may play cards from your hand in front of you - the first card is free, and each additional card costs one more than the card before it.  Finally, you collect income based on the pile you just added to that has the most cards.  Once all players have had a turn, whichever legion pile is worth the most gold goes into Rome's pile.  This continues until the deck has been exhausted.  At that time, players compare their strength in each category against Rome.  If Rome is stronger than (or tied with) all of the players in at least 4 categories, then Rome wins!  And thus, whoever has conspired with Rome (which means they have the most points in the "conspiring" category) is the winner!  Otherwise, players add up points (getting bonuses for various things like having more strength than Rome in a category) and whoever has the most points is the winner.

This is the person betraying you.

So, for everyone out there that enjoys games with multiple paths to victory, this is a game for you!  Now, "multiple" in this case mostly means two.  You can win by scoring the most and having the players defeat Rome, or you can win by sabotaging the players and conspiring with Rome.  I've seen both strategies win in both the two and four player games (I haven't played a three player game yet), so I know both are possible.  However, I think that in the four player game, (at least) one person has to be much more intentional about strengthening Rome's position by adding expensive cards to legion piles in order for the strategy to work.  Either way, I have found this dual victory condition mechanic to work very well, and it makes me hope that more games do something like this.

The next thing that I liked about the game is that each of the different categories was valuable.  With this, you could even argue that there are more than two paths to victory - within the "defeat Rome" strategy, there are different categories you can focus on.  Some of the cards give you points, others give you money, one type lets you buy legion piles cheaper, and one even allows you to draw more than one card at a time before deciding where they go.  Every category is useful - though some are much more useful at the beginning of the game, whereas others are much more valuable late.  Plus, the designer avoided making any of the categories unbalanced.  Specifically, the conspiracy cards could quickly become overpowered (they can give you instant victory), and to compensate for this, you don't collect any income on a turn that you play a conspiracy card!  That's a nice little touch that keeps the game balanced.

My final pro is that I like that your decisions in this game are simple yet challenging.  What do you do on your turn?  For the most part, you're simply looking at a card and deciding what to do with it.  But, since you have no idea what's coming next, it can be tough.  For example - if I draw a card that I could use, but isn't especially helpful, what should I do?  Should I bury it under the deck, even though I can use it?  Should I keep it, and hope that nothing better comes out?  Should I put it in a legion pile - but what if I don't buy it and it helps someone else (or even Rome)?  Pax gives you meaningful and tough decisions to make, and makes you decide how much you're willing to gamble on what you will draw next.

Your legion piles might look like this.

Now, the one con that I see for Pax is that there is a bit more luck involved than some people will like (so far I'm ok with it, but if I play it a lot more, it might eventually bother me more).  This luck primarily comes in two forms.  First, there are 3 cards given to Rome to start the game.  These cards are face down, and most of the time you will not know what they are (you can actually spend an entire turn to look at them, if you want).  So, when playing a close game where someone has been conspiring against Rome a lot, these three cards can determine whether the players win or whether Rome wins.  (One game that we played had 2 of the 3 cards give Rome a lead in a category, thus giving them the lead in 4 categories and having them win!)  The other way that luck plays a role in the game is simply in what you draw, and when you draw it.  As I said before, certain categories are valuable early, and others are valuable late (more specifically, are bonuses to scoring, so it doesn't matter when you play them, but they give you no in-game bonus).  If you draw a lot of scoring cards early, you will be at a significant disadvantage over a player that can get a lot of other bonuses in the first few turns.  The person with the victory point bonuses might officially be "winning" after a couple of turns, but the person with the discount on purchasing will have a better chance of victory.

Overall, I give Pax an 8.5/10.  It's a brilliant little game, and I look forward to playing it more.  I don't necessarily see myself getting together just to play Pax, though, so it doesn't quite crack the 9 threshold.

If Pax sounds interesting, you might also want to check out Atlanteon, Wizard's Gambit, and Orbit Rocket Race 5000.

I would like to thank iRon games for providing me with a review copy of Pax.

Star Wars Customizable Card Game Review

Ok, now for a blast from my past - I am going to take the time to review one of my favorite games of all time - the Star Wars: Customizable Card Game (or CCG for short).  This is a game that I played heavily throughout my high school years, and was really one of my first deeper strategy game.  This review specifically will cover the Premiere set, and if I continue re-playing through this game, I might have several more posts that cover some of the expansions.  At first, when I was thinking about writing this review, I was thinking about how silly it was to write - after all, nobody was going to hunt down a fairly expensive, out of print game from 15 years ago, right?  Well, then I kept thinking about it, and you can currently buy a complete set of the Premiere set on eBay for around $40-50 (if you are patient and willing to buy the White Bordered (Unlimited) version).  So, this puts the pricing fairly comparable to Fantasy Flight's current Living Card Games.  But, honestly, you'd probably want to buy 2-3 sets or so if you legitimately wanted to play the game (and again, to be fair, I've bought two copies of both the Game of Thrones Living Card Game, and the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game, so we're still not talking too outrageous on the pricing).  But anyway - I should review the game now, right?

You'll want Darth if you like winning

In the Star Wars CCG, two players construct decks and then fight over the universe.  (Small task, I know.)  One person constructs an Imperial deck, and the other player uses a Rebel deck.  To start the game, each player selects one location from their deck and these comprise the current battlegrounds - after all, there has to be somewhere to fight!  Then, based on the number of "force icons" on the locations in play, on a player's turn, they "activate force" by moving cards from their deck into a different pile called their "force pile." This is the currency with which they will play cards.  Second, if a player has control over various parts of the universe, they can drain their opponent of life (this is called a "force drain") - their opponent must discard cards from either his hand or one of the piles of cards in front of him (which are collectively his "life force").  Once this initial turn setup has occurred, the active player may put new cards into play by spending a card's cost in force.  Now for the good stuff - a player may spend one force to initiate a battle if both players have forces at the same location.  When fighting, each player (depending on how force attuned his troops are) may get a bonus called a "battle destiny."  For this battle destiny, you flip over the top card from your deck - each card has a number in the top right hand corner.  This number is added to your total strength - but it also represents a battle's attrition, and so it forces your opponent to sacrifice troops (using their "forfeit value" - another stat on each card) to equal the total destiny drawn.  Whoever loses the battle must lose a total value equal to the difference in power - they can lose it by using their troops' forfeit value, discarding cards in their hand, or discarding from their card piles in front of them.  Next, you can move troops, and finally, you can draw cards from your force pile.  Play continues back and forth in this manner until one person runs out of cards in all of the piles in front of them.  Note - yes, I simplified this a lot!

Oooh... starships!

The first thing that I love about the Star Wars CCG is that it is a Star Wars game all about fighting.  There are different ways of defeating your opponent, such as force drains, but mostly you will defeat your opponent by getting a giant group of troops and beating the snot out of your enemy's troops.  The battling system in the game is (though complicated) incredibly fluid, and it just works.  Characters differ - some are stronger than others, some are force attuned.  Some characters are more valuable if you sacrifice them in a battle - this is all represented on the card (and the amount of force to play a character is costed accordingly).  The base set has different weapons that are available to add to the intricacy of the battling - and to also allow you to force your opponent to lose certain characters.  And yet, the battle destiny mechanic has an ability to represent the random things that occur in battles.  But, even then you even have control over your randomness - each person gets to build their own deck, and the destiny drawn will be one of the cards that you chose to put in that deck!  (Which, in my opinion is drastically better than rolling a die!)

The next thing that really impressed me is how many different things from the Star Wars universe are represented both in the base set, and in the game as a whole.  Now, notably, there are some very important Star Wars characters that aren't in the base set - specifically, R2-D2 and Chewbacca (they are in the first expansion), Yoda (he is in a later expansion) and the Emperor (yet another later expansion).  However, in the basic game, you have the ability to fight on land and in space.  You can travel between different planets through docking bays or through hiring a smuggler (this is an Interrupt card).  You have several different weapons (lightsabers of course), and you have fun strategies that you can try out based around Jawas and Tusken Raiders!  (These strategies wouldn't have done very well in tournaments, but most likely you're not going to be reading this review, deciding to play it, and then look for tournaments 15+ years after the game came out.)  And, they did all of these things well!  You have a real feeling of the imbalance between the Rebels and the Imperials, and yet through that you have a very balanced game.  For example the Imperials have Star Destroyers - these things are huge and powerful.  But, they cost a lot of force to deploy.  The Rebels, on the other hand, have Corellian Corvettes (which aren't nearly as strong as the Star Destroyers), but they also have tons of X-Wings and Y-Wings with very talented pilots - which are inexpensive to deploy, even as a combination.  So, though you might not have the sheer strength of a Star Destroyer, Dutch in Gold 1 and Han Solo in the Millenium Falcon might still be able to take them down due to the attrition rules.

It's amazing everything that is included

My third pro is that I think the use of force is brilliant.  It just flat out seems to work better than the currency to play cards in a lot of other games.  Since it creates a new pile of cards, its very easy to keep track of your force and how much you have built up over several turns.  Also, since you draw your cards from your force pile, you are forced to make difficult and important decisions about how many cards you want to draw every turn.  After all, you never know if that last card will be the Darth Vader that you were hoping for!  But, the challenging decisions that this flow of force presents become even more pronounced late in the game.  When you only have 10 cards left in your deck, you have to decide - how many force will I activate?  If you activate too many, you won't have destiny cards to draw in your battle; if you activate too few, you won't have enough force to execute your turn!

Though I could continue thinking of more pros and gushing over how much I enjoy this game (I mentioned it was one of my favorites), I guess I will be honest with myself (and you) and mention some cons.  There are really two that come to mind, and they are two sides of the same coin (well, then a third one came to mind).  One, some cards are flat better than others, and two, this was a collectible game, and so you had to buy zillions of packs of random cards to try to get what you wanted.  For the first con, some cards are just better - if I can choose between putting Darth Vader in my deck or a Stormtrooper, it will be Darth Vader every time.  Same with Obi-Wan and Luke.  Essentially, if it's someone that you know by name from the movies - you want them in your deck.  Now this is fine, and all games have some cards that seem (or are) better than others, but it seems much more pronounced in Star Wars than in most non-collectible games.

Can you guess the Rarity?  Yup Rare1.

Which leads back to the second con - this game is collectible, and it can be a pain to track down the cards that you need.  Now, this is mitigated at this point by the sheer age of the game; most likely if you are interested in trying it you will just buy a complete set or two.  However, when the game came out, there were three rarities - common, uncommon, and rare.  And in each of these, there was a level 1 and level 2.  So, for example, Darth Vader (and all the main characters besides C-3PO) were "Rare1" cards.  Each booster pack contained a single rare - and 1 out of 3 boosters contained a "Rare1" (if I remember correctly).  I've played games that had worse rarity systems (like Mega Man), but I was happy when, a few sets later, they gave up on the 1 and 2 breakdown.  (And, recently, I've been much happier to buy living card games that give me everything in a single pack.)

The third con that I wound up thinking of was that the game can be very confusing when you are initially learning it.  There is a lot going on.  I've known the game for long enough that I often forget about this, but I was incredibly lost when I first tried to learn it.  I think that part of this is because several of the mechanics are pretty unique (so you won't be going, "oh, like in Magic..."), but also the simple fact is that there are a lot of rules - many of them are small or only matter in certain situations, but either way, there are a lot of them.

Overall, I give the Star Wars: CCG a 9.5/10.  (Really, did this surprise anyone?)  In my opinion, it is the best Star Wars game that I have ever played.  Though it is out of print, and many other Star Wars games are coming along, I intend to keep my cards, and I will break them out occasionally to play this game which I find myself still enjoying after 15 years.  If you are looking for a game with deck construction, or if you are a Star Wars fan, you might at least consider checking out this old gem.

If you enjoy games where you get to customize your deck prior to playing, you might also check out Game of Thrones Living Card Game, Lord of the Rings Living Card Game, and (possibly) Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos.