Peter
United States
Carol Stream
Illinois
See, I told you.
You'll get over it.
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**Disclaimer** - I’m a serious game fan, but a casual gamer. Examples and references below are based on my personal experiences and averages of the people I’ve played with. This review assumes you have familiarized yourself with the publicly available information about the game. (i.e. Advertized game descriptions, BGG game information entry, Possible publicly available rules, etc.) If you’re concerned about spoilers do not read this review. I try to limit details in my reviews, but some things have to be mentioned to give readers an idea of what is being discussed.
GAME: Battlestar Galactica
Components:
Design Quality – OK this is a Fantasy Flight game, so right off the get go I had high expectations. As expected the components were beautiful. Nice art / pics and great coloring. Pieces are easily identified as what they represent. The plastic ship minis are quite nice and detailed for their size. The type of cardboard used is the thick stiff kind used for many newer tile games. Most of the printing on the pieces is glossy so glare can be an issue occasionally but is such a small factor it almost isn’t worth mentioning.
A point of concern is the Character Tokens. Thick cardboard is used, but also with plastic bases. It’s the old trick where you stick the cardboard piece into a slot on the plastic base to get a self standing component. Typical wear tear issue. Owners will have to choose between risking the piece possibly bending while in storage, or wearing the cardboard through by putting it together and taking the piece back apart with each game play.
Rules book has a detailed list of components, including card counts. So people buying a used copy can verify if all pieces are present.
Durability – Most of the pieces are going to last. I’m particularly impressed with the type of plastic used for the ships. The plastic is tough but pliable enough that you shouldn’t run into the problem of thin sections breaking off, unless the plastic brittles with age. What is of concern to me is the damage tokens for the Basestars and the Basestars themselves. They are both made out of thick cardboard. The problem lies in their star shapes. The pointed ends will be prone to cardboard peeling. After only three plays the Basestar Damage Tokens are already beginning to fray at the points.
The cards for the game are of the same high quality most CCG’s use. So they should last. Finicky owners may choose to use Deck Protectors. It should be noted half the cards are a smaller than standard type and may be prone to bending easier. Deck protectors can still be used, (I recommend doing so). Finally the dials used to track resources work quite well, but I wonder what ten years of playing might do to them.
Functionality – All the pieces function quite well, and Board clutter is almost never an issue. Even with all the tokens and such, it isn’t hard to keep track of what’s happening or which piece goes where. The pieces are all of decent size and can be identified with quick glances from a seated position. No need to pick up or squint to examine game pieces. The game board on the other hand might cause one to stand. Reading the actions on board spaces sometimes requires one to stand and bend over the board depending on their angle of view. Yes, some pieces are placed onto game spaces with writing, but not so much or so many that getting to the printing underneath is a real issue.
Rules:
Brain Burn – As with many Fantasy Flight games the rule book is thick enough to cause a sigh as you pick it up. It will take the average person a little under an hour to plow through them without interruption. Not something I recommend doing while your game group is sitting around waiting, (unless of course that’s your ‘thing’). You will probably want to read the rules prior and then review them when the group gets together. As far as games go, the complexity isn’t too daunting. Not your non-gamer type of rules set, but easy enough for many casual gamers to pick up quick enough to enjoy a game or two. It can be easier to have one rules guru handle most of the technical details while the other players focus on game play. The real challenge is in understanding all the actions / abilities of the cards (8 decks), characters, game spaces, and Cylons. It will take approximately two full games to become familiar enough with all of these to begin to plan strategies for how to handle them.
Interpretation – The rules are pretty clear. There were not many issues that came up during play. The only issue I noticed was a debate about chaining cards / abilities. Most cards and abilities state you can only use them once per turn or game. Abilities labeled as actions can only be used once per action your character has. Yet there are situations which arise that lead players to believe they can repeat certain cards / abilities as many times in a single turn as they have resources to do so. We didn’t notice any process loops though, repeated actions eventually ended for one reason or another.
Another issue which crops up is the Cylon’s turn. We had to keep referring back to the rules to get clarification on how things where handled. Also, there is a discrepancy on how nuke damage is determined between what is in the rulebook and what is on the Admiral Card. We went with the rulebook interpretation as most often, unless the game is designed to break the rules, the rulebook is the final say.
Retention – I believe this game will suffer a bit from memory seepage. If you play the game repeatedly and regularly no problems will arise. But I can easily see myself pulling this game off the shelf after having not played it in over a year and having to re-teach myself the rules. Not that I dislike the game, quite the contrary. But my play style leans towards variety. It isn’t uncommon for even my favorite games to sit on a shelf un-played for long periods of time while I try out new games or to satisfy personal gaming urges.
Implementation:
Set Up – Not too bad as far as hobby games go. Setting up the decks with all the shuffling and having to set up the Loyalty Deck in a specific way takes the most time. Look to spend about 10-15 minutes if you delegate deck set up between players.
Turn Time – For the most part the game moves at a pretty good clip. Many players know what they want to do before their turn comes up. Turns tend to slow down with critical decisions. Serious strategists tend to think through all their options. This can cause for a bit of down time. In addition, because crisis cards can change things just before a player begins their turn and drawing cards at the beginning of your turn, players often have to rethink their actions. Skill Check resolution takes the lion’s share of time, as players are often doing math in their heads to try and calculate odds of success / failure.
Roadblocks – Rules referencing wasn’t too bad. We did find ourselves pulling out the rule book more than expected, but during our third game this wasn’t bad at all. The Sympathizer Card became the “dreaded” card. In two of our games a player became a Revealed Cylon due to this card. When this happens that player is reduced to performing a choice of only two actions every turn (or a one time choice of three actions in a very rare instance). This severely reduced the overall fun of the game. The players affected by this spent the rest of the game spamming card theft / Battlestar damage, and threw all their cards into the skill checks which came up. The option of adding a crisis was bypassed as it seemed better for Cylons to delay the possible ‘jump’, (escape of humans from many current threats, a kind of reset button function).
Another issue is turn sequence. Be sure to follow the sequence strictly. Players have a tendency to anticipate results and adjusting tokens to represent things which are foregone conclusions in an effort to speed up game play. Unfortunately often something earlier in a game sequence distracts players and then people forget what was changed, or if something was already adjusted or not. (‘jump’ track anyone?).
Finally, attacks with large fleets can become confusing. You’ll want to find a way to differentiate between ships that have acted and those that haven’t yet. We used orientation. Ships facing the right side of the board had yet to act. Ships facing the left didn’t act yet. We always saved Basestars for last as there are only ever two of those and they don’t have front / back orientations.
Theme:
Design Depth – As deep as they get, full thematic design. The mechanics of this game are designed to play into the theme. Many rules and abilities are specifically designed to recreate aspects of the famed TV show. No ‘slap an 1800’s era picture on the cover and giving components middle age names’ here.
Thematic Elements – Characters have abilities and drawbacks which are designed to mimic their TV version. Card abilities and events are all drawn from and designed to recreate the SciFi TV series. Tension created by the secrecy rules and unknown factors can become palpable. TV Series Fan Boys will not be disappointed. Their biggest issue will be fighting over who gets to play everyone’s favorite series character.
Quirks – Due to the randomness of the cards and the ability for the Cylon players to take actions as Humans, odd things can occur. (i.e. a lowly engineer being voted in as president, then impeached, then becoming admiral and declaring marshal law. All only to end up back in a hanger fixing Vipers for a living.)
Spoiler alert! This game gives away some events which occur in the TV Series. If you haven’t seen the series and don’t want anything spoiled, I recommend seeing the TV series before getting or playing this game.
Immersion:
Down Time – As mentioned above, turns can become bogged down with decision making. This can be problematic if you have impatient players, as this may not be the game for your group. This is mitigated by the fact that some abilities can be used on other players turns so players always have reason to be engaged. Yet strategic planners will spend a lot of time considering their options, so be prepared.
Rules referencing will be a factor for your first few plays, and the quick reference sheet is going to need room on the table.
Time Warp – During the first game, time crept by and the game dragged on occasion. By the third game we looked at the clock and couldn’t believe 130 minutes had passed. We could have sworn we’d finished playing in less than an hour.
Where Am I? – Though me and my friends didn’t forget where we were, I can easily see this happening during an exciting game. It is easy to imagine your wife or mother calling to you to get ready for, **Insert Task Requested Here**, and you thinking‘Oh man I completely forgot about…’.
Summary:
Overall I was very pleased with this game. Price point is average for a game of this type. I am glad I spent the money on it to place it in my collection. Do not let the issues above lead you to believe I was disappointed. I simply wanted to be thorough in my review of the game’s aspects. The game is meaty in a contents aspect with high quality components. The rules are a full meal as well, but are pretty clear and relatively free of contradictions, though may suffer from mental retention over time. The game sets up and moves along without issue for any gamer and even most casual gamers. Fans of the theme will not be disappointed. Immersion is the deep end of the pool type. Only a few minor issues were identified and all of them combined did not cause me pause or remorse in any way.
Thank you for reading my review. It makes the effort worthwhile.
Edit: Typos
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Chris Schenck
United States
Dayton
Ohio
GO BUCKS!
Stop touching me!
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
Thanks for writing this review. It's a game I've been seriously considering, and I always appreciate additional info about it.
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Tim Gallagher
United States
Kansas
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
If your still considering picking this one up, you can find this game for $39.99 in your local Borders book store. In Lebanon, NH it was near the check out line and not in their games section.
Not a bad price for this game from a brick and mortar retail store. Also good to see a FFG product in a mainstream store.
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Mikkel Øberg
Denmark
Virum
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
Excellent review, I hope this is wrapped under our Christmas-plant (my father isn't much for trees) this year.
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T France
United States
Oakland
California
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
gallaghertm wrote: If your still considering picking this one up, you can find this game for $39.99 in your local Borders book store. In Lebanon, NH it was near the check out line and not in their games section.
Not a bad price for this game from a brick and mortar retail store. Also good to see a FFG product in a mainstream store.
Also, if you're a Border's Rewards member (free to sign up), they have had a 30% coupon pop up once or twice; get the game for $30!...
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Christopher Hill
United States
Wilmington
North Carolina
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
Nicely written review, Peter. I just ordered this game for our group. It sounds like from your review it should meet our expectations.
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Peter
United States
Carol Stream
Illinois
See, I told you.
You'll get over it.
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
Avenell wrote: Perhaps I am wrong here - but you might want to check and make sure you are doing the right thing here. Are you talking about Activating the Caprica location as a cylon to add crisis cards? If so - get your game board and read everything written on that space.
I believe it says that the jump icons and fleet icons have no effect for crisis instigated by the Caprica location. In other words, every Crisis card the revealed cylon throws at the humans can never activate the Cylon Fleet or get the humans any closer to jumping. You just ignore that part of the card...
Or at least that was my understanding. Read the Caprica location on your game board and tell me what you think. You are correct. This is something we overlooked. We were skipping the fleet activation and 'jump' track progression for the person with the "I'm a Cylon" Card, but for some reason it didn't register with us for the "Sympathizer" Card. Thanks.
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Justin Hoeger
United States
California
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
Nice review! I have a copy here at home that I haven't had a chance to play yet. I want to more every time I read another review.
A quick note: The nuke rules in the manual are the correct ones, according to the official FAQ.
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Dale
United States
Minnesota
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
For what it's worth, I absolutely hate the show, but I played the game on Sunday and I thought it was a blast. Great components, great feel for the material, and great play. Kinda sucks to be the Cyclon in the brig but at least you can make the Humans waste cards keeping you in.
Anyway, as a non-fan of the show I give the game a big thumbs-up.
-dale
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Re: A Thorough, Objective Review [Long But Sectioned]
Good review. I've had my eye on this ever since I found out about the "someone playing may be a Cylon" feature. I'm still on the fence though because I've never watched the tv show and I'm afraid the theme might be over my/my group's head.
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Posted Sat Dec 20, 2008 6:36 pm
