Assault: 19XX

This is a very forgettable game. There are no interesting decisions to make. You have a hand of cards and on your turn you draw a couple more then you play as much as you want. You do this until the game is over. But the strategy is so weak, you are always going to play your weapons unless you have a stronger one out, in which case you will discard it to draw a "luck" card and you will always attack the weakest of your two enemies. The cards in the normal deck and the "Luck" deck had so many duplicates that they were not very interesting. You could draw many of the same cards from either deck except the luck deck had little to no weapons. It all comes down to two people attacking the weakest link in a team. With no ways to help your partner you watch yourself lose even if you have gotten lucky enough to do well. To add insult to injury the other team gets bonuses for attacking the weakest guy making the game one sided very quickly. The powers on the characters range from nearly useless, like having your partner take damage instead of you, to over powered like the guy who can make the opposite team skip a turn. Which brings up the worst mechanic in gaming history, the skip a turn. Not only can you lose a turn from a character power but if you lose your all your life points you are "Knocked out" which means you skip a turn and come back the following turn with one or two life points. You will be knocked out again because you had no time to stop what happened to you in the first place but the other team had two full turns to get stronger. Lose a turn mechanics are the worst, they punish you by not allowing you to even play the game that you sat down to enjoy. Over all this game was very luck driven, very bland and overall forgettable.

Unfortunately feels like a very standard Ameritrash game with too much emphasis on theme above game mechanics. Several of the characters from either faction felt completely unbalanced regarding their special abilities or starting equipment. One character had a once per game ability to make the other team skip their turn, and I used it on the very first turn, basically crippling the other team as my partner and I had two free turns of equipping cards and attacking before the other team had a chance to play and activate their equipment. Another character had the ability to simply immediately destroy an equipped weapon, which was also used on the first turn to render my partner's character ineffective due to his special ability being entirely dependent on being equipped with a specific gun he starts the game with. The game also presents itself as a team vs team game, but there was almost no interactions between teammates other than being able to heal them if you happened to draw the first aid kit card. Additionally, you'll invariably end up in a situation where one teammate simply had worse draws than his partner, therefore their defense value will be lower, so they will become the sole target of attacks from both enemies. All in all, this game simply isn't for me since I no longer enjoy games where you are so dependent on luck to draw the best equipment and ability cards, and the only real choice you have is which enemy to target and hope you roll high enough to hit them.

Also have the 19XX game board.

This is a game with beautiful art and great atmosphere. I was torn on rating it as I think that the fun you can have with it is greatly tied to your familiarity with the graphic novels from which the scenarios and characters are drawn. From that perspective, it's a 10. Without reading and being a fan of the game-maker's story universe, however, the game loses it's special appeal and leaves itself open to some mechanical criticism.

If you've read the stories and know the characters (recommended!), it's fun to engage in their battle of good and evil. The special powers of each character make sense and the items, bonuses and brawling nature are all familiar as they are drawn from the pages of the books. Assault: 19XX is further enhanced by its narrative "Chapter Cards" which can impact the global conditions of the game like plot lines from the stories.

If you don't know the stories or care about the characters, then you may be less able to forgive some of the games mechanical shortcomings. The game, for example, relies too heavily on luck for my preference, both in terms of card shuffles and die rolls. Without luck of the draw and some dice juju, you can really get behind quickly and there's little strategy can do to help you recover.

In another review, I saw disappointment with the game's liberal use of the "skip a turn" mechanic. The criticism is valid. While getting "knocked out" is a common happenstance in the graphic novels, it does make for potentially frustrating game participation. At its worst, a player may be sidelined for much of an entire game if others continue to take advantage of their being the weakest link just to rack up victory points.

Overall, we have had fun with the game and enjoy the immersion in the 19XX Universe it creates. If you are already a fan, you need this game. If you decide to purchase the game as a game first, get the books that go along with it. It will make all the difference in your satisfaction.

I really enjoyed this game. If you're a fan of the comic, it has some great tie-ins. It reminded me a little of Bang!, which is one of my favorite games. One different aspect that I liked, however, is that when a player is knocked out, they aren't completely out of the game. They have to skip a turn but then get to re-enter. In the rare case that game play slows, the artwork and descriptions on the luck and item cards are enough to keep you entertained.

Great work!