It's an age old question. Zombie-Aliens or Pirate-Dinosaurs? Luckily, there is a game to let us battle it out.
Smash Up is a shuffle building card game that plays 2-4 players. To add diversity and maximize fun, I recommend playing with 3-4 players.
The game is made is up of 8 factions. You can add extra decks with expansions but for the sake of simplicity we will just look at what the basic game includes. Each faction has a deck of 20 cards. To start, you take 2 of these decks and shuffle them together to make a deck of 40 cards. Personally, I like to make these selections random but you can always take turns picking your factions if you prefer.
The 8 factions in the base game are Zombies, Aliens, Dinosaurs, Wizards, Tricksters, Pirates, Robots, and Ninjas. Each faction brings its own unique mechanics and strategies. Subsequently, each combination of these opens up new possibilities. For example, Zombies bring back cards from the discard pile where as Robots allow you to play lots of cards minions and chain them together. So you can see how using these together can be pretty powerful.
During play you use your deck to play 1 Action and/or 1 Minion on the Base cards that are placed on the table or on minions already played (depending on the card). Each base card has different abilities, difficulties and Victory Point values. The Base has a break point which is represented by a number in the top corner of the card. The goal is to use your deck of Actions and Minions to get enough points on the Base to reach the bases break point causing it to score. The VP you receive is determined by the Base card and your point total on the Base. When a Base scores, Victory Points are rewarded to the first, second, and third place players. The amount of Victory Points each player gets is listed right on the Base card itself.
The picture above is what a typical three player game might look like. Each player plays their cards on the side of the base that is closest to them.
A few things I love:
Variety
Every game is different based on the combination of your deck, the combination of players and their decks, and the Bases that are played. Working out strategies to best fit each game is always entertaining.
It's not just smoke and mirrors.
Each faction is not just a differently themed version of the other. They actually have very unique mechanics suited to the theme. Pirates allow you to ship Minions off from one Base to the next instead of being destroyed and Dinosaurs have raptors that become more powerful by having multiple on the same base. Don't you hate it when games just use the same cards with different themes or art? Come on. Who do they think they're fooling?
The artwork
It's absolutely gorgeous! Sure, if you don't care about the art this may be a moot point but if you love looking at beautiful things, this could be the game for you.
What I'm not so crazy about:
Scoring
Okay, so there's really only one thing that I'm less than thrilled with here. Each Base has no clear indicator of what the current score is. So you find yourself constantly recounting each card to check the total. Normally, this may not be a problem, but in this case there are some cards that have "fine print" which can add extra points to some or all of the players cards on a Base. If you're planning ahead, another player may catch you trying to count the points on a particular card. This could lead to them beating you to the punch if their turn is before yours. The good news? There is a fix for this in the making! There will soon be new Base cards released that have a counter printed right on the card. You may have seen them used if you watched the episode of Wil Weaton's fantastic show Tabletop on Geek and Sundry's YouTube channel. During his episode featuring the game he had special bases to make it easier to illustrate the score for the viewer and AEG have had so many requests as to where to get the cards they have said they will bring them to market in late 2013.
Overall, this is probably my favourite game right now. No two games play out the same which adds a ton of replay value. The art is gorgeous and the different factions not only play like their respective theme but also have fun humour infused throughout. I give it nine zombie-dinosaurs out of ten. Whether you are a gamer or are looking for that gateway game to get friends interest I would definitely recommend picking up a copy!