INTRODUCTION
I apologize in advance for the length of this review. If you dislike reading, you might want to leave now and bop on over to Youtube, where they show videos and such. This is not to suggest I have uploaded a video of this review over there, because I have not. If you attempt to search their massive database of fine films for a video version of this review, you will be left wanting. Unless of course, some other psychopath managed to mysteriously post an exact filmic duplicate of the review you are about to read, but the chances of that are Slim to None, with the needle not quite spiked on 'None.' (I take no responsibility if someone decides to go out of his or her way to spite me by posting a video version of this review at a later date. I pre-emptively call shenanigans on it, though. SHENANIGANS.)
At any rate, in this review I will be comparing Twilight Struggle to the Star Wars Customizable Card game.
Yes, I'm comparing a pseudo-wargame from GMT to a collectible card game from Decipher.
No, I haven't lost my mind.
No, you shouldn't throw rocks at me.
Yes, you should read on to see what the hell I'm talking about, so you can verify that I haven't lost my mind.
If you're a cruel, heartless person and intend to deride and belittle my opinions when you get to the end, please feel free to stop reading now and peruse one of the other fine reviews on this website so that you can hurt that author's feelings. (Obviously, it would be preferable if you hurt the feelings of NO ONE, but I can't very well control your impulses, can I?)
If you're the type to heap praise and mountains of GeekGold upon reviewers, feel free to skip the boring parts and start the heaping if you deem this review heap-worthy.
Or, if you're lazy, and you want to skip all the fascinating specifics I'm going to discuss, jump down to the very bottom where you get a summarized view of my thoughts on both games.
On to the fun...
GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS OF GAMEPLAY IN BOTH
I'm not going to bore you with in-depth intricate descriptions of how these games are played, and how the specific rules work. I will simply be providing a very general overview of the gameplay of both games, so if you are left wanting more after you've read my descriptions, there are a multitude of other reviews that run through the rules of the games, so if you are one of those obsessive types that has to know every little thing, you should probably check out one of those other reviews and come back to this one when you have the mental fortitude to handle the contents herein. (No, that's not a typo for heroin, you junky.)
TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
Twilight Struggle is an attempt to recreate The Cold War in the form of a board game. 299
One player controls the USSR and the other controls the US. Players vie for control of the world by expanding their influence in individual countries. The game is card-driven, which means that the cards dictate all the actions players are allowed to take that they are holding in hand.
STAR WARS: CCG
The Star Wars Customizable Card game was Decipher's attempt to create a card game out of the Star Wars license. At its peak, it was the second most popular collectible card game in the world, under the current champ: Magic the Gathering. (If you're the pedantic type, now's the perfect opportunity to do some web-based research just so you can prove me how very wrong I am of that fact in the comments section below!) In this game, players attempted to drain each other of their Life Force (aka: their deck of cards) by dealing damage based on controlling locations and winning battles.
At first blush, there's nothing obviously similar about the two games. One's a pseudo-wargame; the other is a collectible card game. What could they possibly have in common?
My reply: Quite a bit.
SIMILARITIES
[Author's note: From here on out, the bits that reference Twilight Struggle will be colored red. The bits that reference SWCCG will be colored blue. This allows me to not use so many transitional introductory phrases like "In Twilight Struggle..." or "Similarly, in SWCCG..." Writing too many of those would make me lose my mind, and it's in a tender enough state as it is, that we need not push it screaming into the abyss. I like my abysses filled with undiscovered cyclopean cities and horrid monsters beyond description, and ONLY undiscovered cyclopean cities and horrid monsters beyond description, thank you very much. 237