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XCOM: The Board Game
Time to play: 1–2 hours
Number of players: 4XCOM's official board game is a complete bastard, but a magnificent one all the same. It puts you in command of a single aspect of the first, last, and only defense against the scum of the universe, while your largely inept friends struggle to deal with their own roles in protecting the planet.You and your buddies play as Central Officer, Commander, Chief Scientist, or Squad Leader. The four of you have to work together as a team to topple the alien menace, controlled by a mobile companion app.The app is relentless. The app wants to make you suffer. It throws a series of tough decisions at you while the clock ticks down, its demands delivered by an increasingly burnt-out central officer.
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Netrunner
Time to play: 20–30 minutes
Number of players: 2Asymmetrical multiplayer with one player taking control of an evil mega-corporation while another plays the hacker trying to bring it down, in a cyberpunk world that's part Johnny Mnemonic and part Shadowrun? That's a game most people would want to play. They might even, dare I say, pre-order it.Netrunner is a physical card game, like Magic: The Gathering, but without any of the fantasy trappings. It's not based on a video game, but it touches on a lot of familiar themes. The flavor here is hard sci-fi, and the game can go deep. You probably don't know that the combination of Dyson Mem Chip, Data Folding, and Underworld Contact lands you a bunch of free credits, but it does, and it's just one of hundreds of tricks you're going to have to learn.The two sides play quite differently: Corporations play a bluffing game, setting up defenses and punishing the Runner for diving too deep while trying to protect their agendas long enough to score them for points. The Runner takes a more inquisitive line, trying to avoid the heavy defenses and sneaking runs on the Corporation player to try and take his agendas before he can score them, which nabs the Runner the points instead. Confused? You'll work it out, and while hacking the planet can be tough, it's absolutely worthwhile.
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Related: Watch VICE's film on Magic: The Gathering
Gears of War: The Board Game
Time to play: 2–4 hours per mission
Number of players: 1–4Bullets, brofists, and badasses. Gears of War seems like the most unlikely title to make the leap to the physical world. To bring a game like Gears of War to plasticky life, you need a rockstar. Enter Corey Konieczka, the designer behind the excellent Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars: X-Wing, and World of Warcraft board games.His adaptation is simple, and it mixes the best parts of Gears of War with more than a touch of survival horror. Missions are taken from the game and could see you tackling a Berserker or just surviving a number of Locust attacks. Each mission takes two to four hours, meaning that completing every last one will take longer than finishing the video game that inspired them.Playing it is a tactile experience. There's a lot of dice to roll and plenty of figures to move around. The bad guys are controlled using a deck of cards that acts like an AI. You draw a card at the end of your turn and it tells you who spawns, where to spawn them, and what they'll do once they're on the board.
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Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game
Time to play: 30-45 minutes
Number of players: 2-4As you can't get a real-life Portal Gun just yet (alas), Portal's board game has to rely on the series's other big selling points: its wicked sense of humor and obsession with all things cake.Portal follows in the footsteps of its digital brother by taking place in a series of test chambers. Players add their Test Subjects to the 15 chambers and try to avoid turrets, companion cubes, and other hazards, all the while trying to get their hands on that delicious cake. You need to earn as much cake as possible, while taking out your opponent's Test Subjects.If that sounds simple, you've been misled. It's complete carnage. The reason Portal works is because it doesn't focus on portals, but on planning. Planning is unpredictable, partly because the game is complete chaos, partly because players can play cards at any time that change the rules of the game itself.
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Boss Monster
Time to play: 15–20 minutes
Number of players: 2–4Boss Monster is a dungeon crawl in reverse, a tower defense where you're defending the bad dudes. Don't worry about grabbing some of that loot, because you play the treasure-hoarding monster that already has it all. What you're on the prowl for is adventurers' souls—but why hit the bricks when they can come to you?The aim of the game is to make your dungeon as appealing as possible to the incoming adventurers, stuffed full of the particular treasure they crave, like some sort of malevolent candy store. Once you've lured them in, you have the length of your dungeon to make sure the plucky treasure seekers never make it out. The monster who makes it to ten delicious souls first is the king of monster mountain.Play revolves around two phases. First, players can build a room of treasure bait with fiendish guardians or traps. Rooms are played face down and revealed when the action begins, making the set up a sort of silent auction of adventure allure. Comboing your rooms entices your victims in while making sure they never reach you. When building is over and the prey are let loose, spells can be used to add extra damage and protect you from invaders if they're deadlier than you expected.There's an old-school feel to the game that'll remind you of classic 16bit adventures, with a simple rule set and a limited number of resources allowed in play anytime. That all makes it a great experience for your first foray to the board gaming table.Don't assume it lacks depth, though, because balancing your rooms can be tricky. You want the best treasure on the table, but skimping on damage will let adventurers stroll right in and murder you, like you run a B&B for angry mages. Is that what happens at a B&B? I forget.Follow Jake Tucker on Twitter.