"These colonial marines are very tough hombres. They're packing state of the art firepower. There's nothing they can't handle." - <PERSON>
"It won't make any difference." - <PERSON>
If you were to ask me what I would want from a game based off <PERSON> near-perfect masterpiece, Aliens, from 1986, I would say two things: First, I would want to blow away xenomorphs with a gun longer than my body and revel in man's hubristic disregard for the natural world. And second, I would want to know that, in the end, it wouldn't make any difference.
A fast-paced, dice-chucking, FUBAR of a dungeon crawl, Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is Gale Force Nine's answer to my prayers. More than anything else, GF9 has written a love letter to the film's devoted fanbase, so much so that gamers who might not have seen the movie -- or even those who haven't seen it enough to recognize every line of script GF9 has shoved into this box (even in the title!) -- would likely not appreciate the game's thematic greatness. For the Aliens uninitiated, let's just hope you're playing the game with a fan, otherwise you'll have no idea why "Game over, man" is repeated in the rules and on cards ad nauseam.
Which isn't the say that the game lacks creative design decisions. While Aliens: AGDITC doesn't reinvent the dungeon-crawl genre, the design succeeds in melding creative mechanisms with the theme. (Note to self: Don't say "Aliens in a box." Don't say "Aliens in a box.") If you love the movie, and have always wanted to play the movie, then this is the game for you. If you love manic dungeon crawls where one dice roll or card draw makes the difference between survival or a miserable, agonizing death, then this too is the game for you -- with the caveat that GF9 makes no apology for those who don't know the source material.
If you love the movie but are sick of dungeon crawls, well, there's always Upper Deck's very good Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deckbuilding Game.
Despite my obvious enthusiasm, I don't mean to say that Aliens: AGDITC is flawless. Dungeon crawlers offer a very familiar and comforting type of gaming experience but also come with very obvious limitations and drawbacks. This one is no different. Your guys move about a board blasting things, rinse, repeat. 755
Aliens: AGDITC doesn't alter that general flow or feel, so if you were hoping for something a bit more experimental, this ain't it. But what GF9 has done, and what it has done extremely well, is offer the definitive "Aliens" board game experience, and even managed to add enough freshness to the genre to hope that the ideas in this box get replicated elsewhere.
Components
The box art alone is like an homage to fans. Instead of going with the predictable -- like an alien or a marine or a marine blasting an alien or an alien mauling a marine -- GF9 gives us a blood-splattered pulse rifle with the ammo read-out showing one round left over the logo of Weyland-Yutani. (You either know what all that means or you don't -- and if you don't, well, watch the movie.) The image evokes the experience one is going to find inside the box: violence, hopelessness, and death -- but it's going to be a helluva ride, sort of like an express elevator to hell, going down.
Unfortunately, that's about the extent of GF9's artistic endeavors. With the exception of the modular game boards, nearly every image inside the box is a still from the movie. For the most part, this works with the "love letter" idea GF9 is going for. The cards are of good quality with a glossy finish, and while you'll probably want to sleeve them, they should withstand multiple shuffles. The images on the cards tie in the card's effect and for the most part are well chosen, iconic images from the movie. The aforementioned "Game Over Man!" card shows <PERSON> at the very moment he says the most quoted line in the movie. There are exceptions, however, which fans will be able to notice, when the card's title and the image don't match. And there are some plain ol' misses. One <PERSON> card called "Burke's Treachery" does show <PERSON> in the act of treachery, but the image chosen bizarrely only shows half of <PERSON>'s face, with most of the frame of some unfocused background. 755