All Right -- I will be the first to tackle a review of "The Ares Project". It has been nearly 2 weeks since Origins 2011 finished and there has yet to be a review posted, and from an active gamer, I think I can tell you why. There is so much game play packed into this little box that most of us lucky 60 who got a copy probably just do not know where to start. I now have 6 plays of the game under my belt, and I cannot even call this a full review.
Disclaimer: I contribute to The Dice Tower podcast as one of the Father Geek guys. Although <PERSON> has been a long time contributor also, there is no contract that I have with him or <PERSON> to be nice. I have no bias at all but want to share this information in the name of full disclosure. I only met him for the first time while waiting for the exhibit hall to be opened as I rushed in to get one of the 60 copies, and yeah, it would have been a bit awkward if his game was either mediocre or bad, but fortunately it is not.
Disclaimer: I have played five 2p games, all of them Terrans vs. <PERSON>, and a 3p game with the Xenos added in. I cannot claim a full review here as we have yet to crack the Colossus faction.
Euro or Ameri-trash
Rather than your standard overview of game play, I am going to dive right into this question. Is The Ares Project an Ameri-trash game, or an Euro game? The answer may surprise. It is both. It is truly both. And it is beautiful.
I am a gamer who swings the pendulum both ways. I go through phases where I like the pure strategy and economic honing a Euro gives, and then I go through <PERSON>-like YABE (yet another boring euro) phases where I just want to let the game and the dice take me on a fun ride allowing me to give a nudge of tactics or strategy here and there.
This game will be polarizing. There will be some who say it fails on both fronts. Then there will be some, like myself, who say it succeeds at being both. 92
Never before have I played a game that has such deep abstract strategy and tactics, while still telling a story, and still giving the thrill of chance as you absolutely need to roll under a 3 with 2 out of 4 dice. Sure -- I have lost and won games on the dice, but never did I feel like it was fully the fault of the dice. Each time I lost critical battles that swung the game, I could not honestly go back and claim that I played the best I could and have and lost on chance alone. In many ways I liken the pattern of the game to that of poker. Sure, you can lose a hand that cost you half your stack of chips because your opponent pulled a spade on the river, but regardless, the better player will usually win out in the end. Yes, you may lose a game because you rolled box cars (low is good), but for me, it just makes me want to play again...immediately.
I don't care how Euro you are, I never met a person who does not like rolling a handful of dice. What Euro-gamers do not like is when that handful of dice is more or less the entirety of the game after all the theme and maneuvers are peeled away. For The Ares Project, there is so much depth of strategy in the opportunity cost of planning to use your finite resources; there is so much depth of tactics in how you construct for battle and commit to the line; there is so much depth of deduction in seeing snapshots of your opponents layout then guessing where he is going to take it. As a Euro-lover myself, we eat all of that right up.
Polarizing? Maybe. Ground-breaking? Definitely.
Overview
I am just going to touch on this briefly as the rules give a good overview by themselves. The game is heavily inspired by Starcraft, in that it has 4 completely different races that have their own flavored rule set they follow alongside core rules in order to battle for control of the Mars landscape.
In RTS fashion, you construct buildings that allow you to construct units, which are how you ultimately achieve dominance to win the game. Each faction has very unique powers and abilities that are used to enhance the core game play. Unlike RTS, the game is not a "dudes on a map" game that involves careful territory control tactics. Battle is very abstracted in that you either try to gain a generalized control of the frontier, or you are striking at your opponents base.
Gameplay Summary
Again, this is a very brief overview. The rules give excellent examples to garner all the details. You play a card, you draw a card. That is it. 237